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Thread ID: 80323	2007-06-19 10:28:00	Australia announces vast national broadband plan	zqwerty (97)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
560584	2007-06-24 06:26:00	I would hate it if the government wasted huge amounts of money on providing broadband so idiots can download US TV programmes. Most use of broadband makes no contribution to the NZ economy. The few organisatiions which need broadband have access. The mass who want it for playing should be prepared to pay wnat it costs for it. I want a decent social system, and a good public health system, among many other things. Broadband rubbish is very low on my list. Amen. :thumbs:	Winston001 (3612)
560585	2007-06-24 06:38:00	I've always wondered who owns/erects/buries/maintains the power grid, and assuming providers actually have to produce the electricity, how do they keep track of who contributed/consumed what? Electricity is created by generating companies. Meridian, Contact etc, using dams, wind, gas. The electricity is sent down lines which are owned, in the case of high transmission, by Transpower. We all own Transpower as an SOE. Other local lines are owned by various electricity lines companies. Finally, the retailer is the seller of electricity to you and I. Again, Meridian, Contact, Trustpower etc. The reason for the break in continuity between generator and retailer is to avoid monopoly. The lines company in the middle sets the price for transmitting the electricity. Otherwise if Meridian did it, they'd control the whole power stream from dam to customer and could (in theory) charge what they liked. The relevance here is that arguably the government should have broken up Telecom before selling it, and created a line company owned by the taxpayer. Then Telstra, Orcon etc could have negotiated access to the lines, because they wouldn't be owned and controlled by Telecom. Hindsight eh. :(	Winston001 (3612)
560586	2007-06-24 06:46:00	lol, I always assumed that when they said they 11 billion they actually had it. Completely understandable and many people think the same. However if the same people were told they had a budget surplus themselves (say $10,000) because they'd paid down their mortgage and put a bit into superannuation, they'd call you mad. They are in fact better off but it isn't money in a bank account. You can't see it - or spend it.	Winston001 (3612)
560587	2007-06-24 10:29:00	omg, someone on the interweb that actually sounds like they know what they're talking about:horrified so are the generators/retailer the same people or do retailers buy the power from the generators, who may be themselves?	motorbyclist (188)
560588	2007-06-24 10:41:00	Most use of broadband makes no contribution to the NZ economy. The few organisatiions which need broadband have access. The mass who want it for playing should be prepared to pay wnat it costs for it. I want a decent social system, and a good public health system, among many other things. Broadband rubbish is very low on my list. I think it is actually the small or smaller business that would actually benefit from access to faster affordable internet. There was an article in the Herald on Thursday about an expat Kiwi recently returned from the US now living in Masterton who has a number of US clients that he does TV ads for. He regularly sends 2-3 MB mpegs over dialup from Marsterton to the US and then sends the finished QT file (much larger) to the US. To do the same thing in the US is much more straight forward. Otherwise we may as well all be driving Model T Fords around because after all they are still cars...right?	winmacguy (3367)
560589	2007-06-24 11:15:00	There was an article in the Herald on Thursday about an expat Kiwi recently returned from the US now living in Masterton who has a number of US clients that he does TV ads for. He regularly sends 2-3 MB mpegs over dialup from Marsterton to the US and then sends the finished QT file (much larger) to the US. To do the same thing in the US is much more straight forward. To do what? Find a place to live that is an inappropriate choice given your communication reguirements. If Masterton had quality broadband he'd probably move to Castle Point.	PaulD (232)
560590	2007-06-25 00:45:00	To do what? Find a place to live that is an inappropriate choice given your communication reguirements. If Masterton had quality broadband he'd probably move to Castle Point. Paul, it isn't that simple. If we followed that rationalist argument almost every Kiwi would move to Christchurch and Auckland. Would NZ as a society be a better place? We actually need people to live outside the large cities and they shouldn't be disadvantaged. Many businesses are on dial-up and cannot move. For example, orchardists, farmers, trucking companies.....	Winston001 (3612)
560591	2007-06-25 00:49:00	so are the generators/retailer the same people or do retailers buy the power from the generators, who may be themselves? Ummm.......Motorbyclist, could you please start you sentences with upper case? It makes your posts so much easier to read. Yes, generators and retailers are often exactly the same company. Essentially they pay Transpower and/or a lines company to transmit their own power.	Winston001 (3612)
560592	2007-06-25 00:54:00	To do what? Find a place to live that is an inappropriate choice given your communication reguirements. If Masterton had quality broadband he'd probably move to Castle Point. I was assuming that he had returned home to Masterton (being that he had left his home town of Masterton some 20 years ago to go to the US) and that despite the relative size of this country both geographically and population wise a decent internet service should be available to all towns and cities. It might put an end to Telecom dishing out dividends to it's shareholders in the short term but hey thats their problem not the countries.	winmacguy (3367)
560593	2007-06-25 01:08:00	Sometimes you have to spend a sizeable chunk of change on technology in order to get a decent ROI just to keep up with the rest of the world who are speedly leaving us behind.	winmacguy (3367)
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