www.nickhodge.com

I work online. I live online.

I am a cus­tomer of Inter­node (home ADSL, VoIP, via Tel­stra copper-wire) and Tel­stra NextG (USB card for remote work­ing). There are two Fox­tel digital units in my house. Host­ing for this web site is some­where in the US with Dream­host. My super­an­nu­ation fund is a minor Tel­stra round 3 share­holder. My cor­por­ate mobile phone is Tel­stra NextG; both voice and data services. 

The cur­rent argu­ments back and forth between Tel­stra and the “group-of-9″, the politi­cians who have “solved the band­width” prob­lem, ACCC and every­one else who is involved in this high-asset, high-customer-volume, highly com­pet­it­ive busi­ness; are start­ing to really piss me off. 

There I said it. Piss me off. Really piss me off. I am almost postal.

Today, I spent 4 hours upload­ing a video into the cor­por­ate cloud. I am attempt­ing to save some car­bon atoms from escap­ing into the atmo­sphere by doing what was once a poten­tial pan­acea: tele-commuting. Work­ing online. Earn­ing tax dol­lars by liv­ing in Australia.

Really, it shouldn’t take that long.

What is this FTTN (Fibre to the Node) thing any­way? I see no bene­fit to the end cus­tomer as noone is actu­ally put­ting a piece of fibre into each house. It seems to be a large charade to divert attention.

Where is the com­pet­i­tion? Where is my choice? Do any politi­cians actu­ally use the inter­net apart from watch­ing You­tubes of our little Prime Min­is­ter? Less reg­u­la­tion, more competition.

I once wanted politi­cians involved in ICT. Hav­ing spoken to some in the Lib­eral Party on this mat­ter a few years ago, their response was “join the line of issues regard­ing policy”

Now that they have become involved; only as there is a bal­an­cing act between the votes in the bush vs. the investors in Tel­stra: recent policies and invest­ments seem to have slowed innov­a­tion and com­pet­i­tion rather than improve services.

So, I regret my thoughts on want­ing politi­cians involved. Stay out of it. Let the mar­ket decide. Do some­thing use­ful and fix the hos­pit­als. KTHXBAI.

In the 19^th and 20^th Cen­tury rail­ways moved our gold, sil­ver, lead, wool and wheat from the pro­duct­ive farms and mines to our over­seas markets.

In the 21^st Cen­tury, the two lines are not the iron lines 5ft 3in apart: they are the twis­ted cop­per pairs that con­nect our brains to the world. Brains, politi­cians. Not atoms. What is in our head is already more import­ant than atoms.

Instead of our bright­est minds tak­ing their brains and ideas to other parts of the world, we need to har­ness them here — and con­nect them to the world.

I don’t really care too much about the to-and-fro and polit­ical shen­angi­ans anymore.

Just open it up. Be brave. Let us all rise, includ­ing those rebadged PMGs, to a new world where the tyranny of dis­tance is slain.

Per­sonal Rant Over.