Australia’s broadband investment classed as poor

Despite the fuss over the benefits of the National Broadband Network in Australia a recent report has classed the broadband investment as poor due to the cost compared with the benefits.

There are been a lot of news about the National Broadband Network in Australia lately, with controversy still surrounding the NBN and many believing that it should be scrapped given the recent chaos that has hit Australia. Many others, however, believe that the government needs to press ahead with the NBN because of the benefits that it will provide, despite the cost of billions of dollars from the public purse.

However, whilst communications and broadband minister Stephen Conroy has repeatedly highlighted the huge benefits of the NBN one recent report has suggested that compared to many other countries the network does not represent value for money and has therefore classed the broadband investment in Australia as poor due to the cost of the set up compared with the benefits.

The report was released following research by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the results of which were recently published. Australia is said to be spending a massive 7.6 percent of its annual government budget revenues on the NBN. However, in Korea, for example, the government is spending less than one percent of annual government budget revenues in order to achieve their goals with regards to broadband. It is claimed that Australia will be spending twenty four times as much as South Korea for just a tenth of the speed.

The NBN has a target speed of 100Mbps for broadband users. However, the report highlighted that there were many countries, such as France, Finland, and Sweden, where there were plans to achieve similar targets to this but at a far lower cost. Some developed countries in south east Asia are aiming for speeds of 1000Mbps.

Do you believe that the NBN is a poor investment? Let us know with your comments

Source – Voxy