The Labor government lost the election last weekend and people need to deal with it. After the Coalition took power, gone was the Aussie dream of having a nationwide Fibre-to-the-premises NBN that reached 93% of the population. While everyone in the tech space that fully understands the difference between the FTTP and FTTN models are disappointed, we’re powerless to change it.
As is the problem with our political system, that people get a single vote for multiple issues, the successful Coalition are claiming a mandate on every issue. Despite plenty clear evidence to the contrary, the FTTP NBN is dead.
Self-confessed Liberal voter Nick Paine setup a petition on Change.org to pitch Tony Abbott on changing their NBN policy. The problem is there is no number of signatures on this petition that will change the Coalition NBN policy. Throughout the campaign, the now Communication and Broadband Minister, Malcolm Turnbull was completely closed down to any changes to their policy and insisted that a faster build at a cheaper cost was the correct way forward.
This debate has exactly zero to do with the technical questions and everything to do with beliefs and vision. With the best option already taken by Labor, the Coalition was forced to create and now stick to a policy that was different and here we are facing that reality.
Below is the pitch to the Prime Minister, Tony Abbot to change their approach to FTTH / FTTP model. This won’t happen.
The petition is so popular it has now become Australia’s most successful online petition with 165,954 supporters. Tonight it even got coverage on Channel Ten’s prime time news show, The Project.
It’s a sad reality, but there isn’t a number that the petition could reach, 500,000, 1 million, even 5 million supporters will not get the Coalition to change policy. The biggest reasons are primarily the budget, apparently we can’t afford the best internet. The other reason and probably bigger reason is that it would be seen as a back down which we’ve seen can be disastrous in politics.
The only way to achieve a FTTP connection in Australia will be to move to a new estate, or pay for the node to premises connection yourself. This of course has no timeframe on it.
