Getting Australia Wired

Sam Bowring forms a scatty opinion of the Labor government's new internet overhaul.

When I first heard that the Rudd government would be introducing VDSL all across Australia, I worried they had gone quite mad with power. Fortunately it turns out that VDSL is not a sexually transmitted disease, but actually it stands for Very High Speed DSL. Or in simpler terms, Friggin’ Fast Internet. Labor’s plan is for most homes to have broadband speeds a hundred times faster than what is currently available. On the Information Super Highway, there will be flowers taped to telegraph poles as far as the eye can see.

It sounds wonderful of course, one step closer to that age-old dream of living in The Matrix ... but I have to wonder, is this kind of speed really necessary? Personally I have a middle-of-the-range broadband connection, and it seems fine to me. Websites load up more quickly than I can ‘read’ them. Illegally downloaded television comes in quicker than you can stamp your wooden leg and shout ‘Arrr!’. Email takes but a few seconds to download. I suppose if I didn’t have to wait, I could use those few seconds doing something else more valuable, like winding up a desk toy, or flicking an ant from my blueberry muffin - but overall my internet is good. I don’t feel the need to increase the speed at which I waste time.

I also have to wonder what comes after VDSL, given that technology is always improving – how do you improve on instantaneous? Perhaps if information arrived BEFORE you even knew you wanted it? Broadband at prophetic speed? Or maybe an implant directly in the brain which simultaneously disseminates all available data to every member of the human race, until we ultimately decide it would be best to build a cube shaped space ship and go off hunting for Captain Jean Luc Picard.

My point? Hmm. Only that the plan seems a little excessive, that there are perhaps more important things to worry about, and that we’re heralding in the death of anticipation. It’s all right though – I hardly knew him.

So put THAT in your pipe and download it.

- Sam Bowring