One small correction to your article in the sentence: “Yet apart from specialist IT media like iTnews there was just one solitary mainstream story.” The link there goes to an iTWire article, not an iTnews article (and the capitalisations are inportant!). Although they have similar names, the sites are not affiliated. In the interests of full disclosure, I sometimes write articles for iTWire.

Hamish Taylor

I’ve tried to provide some background on PIPE’s overall impact in this blog post.

On an unrelated note, Anthony, you might be surprised to learn that a huge chunk of what you pay for bandwidth is not actually paying for international connectivity, but rather delivering services to your house (the last mile).

You should also consider that this PIPE cable has cost $200m to lay and I’m sure the management costs are many millions more, so don’t hold your breath for dirt-cheap high-speed no-quota broadband Internet. No, not even the NBN can deliver this.

the new infrastructure in no way will expose kiddies to any more porn or game violence. and i personally think ur an idiot. it makes data transfer from other country’s faster meaning it will just take slightly less time for the kids to download the porn and slightly better pings in video games to shot there enemy more satisfyingly. and it will one would hope lower the current cost of broadband per gig we use. meaning u can pay less knowing kiddies can do it all slightly faster then before. cant wait to see ur face once the nbn rolls out in ur street lolz (presuming it does roll out which it has had a set back after set back)
dont make stupid comments not related to the comment. if you have a problem with kids watching porn then i guess you can slide in with those communists wanting the isp level filtering up which i will simply go to a nz proxy to bypass. and im only 16 and ive been using proxys for years to go outside of school firewalls. but anyways thats off topic. i understand why u would be upset for the kids but this neither the time or the place to make such a comment. this is a great landmark because i dont like the cost for my massive data usage. and this should help lower the cost while increasing the quota.

ahh! Don’t hold your breath!

Indeed, one could be forgiven for thinking that the mainstream media, including the ABC, goes out of its way to publish, print or broadcast any fear and doubt beat up they possibly can if the internet is involved. I haven’t seen any evidence of the ABC’s much publicised, balanced editoral policy on this issue. In the last 18 months balance has been conspicuous by its absence where IT is involved. Where are the knowledgeable IT industry groups, Australian Computer Society, SAGE or EFA when these issues are raised?

This connection with Guam is important for a number reasons and should get more coverage. *sigh*

Today I have read tech journos arguing that technology reporting ought remain segregated from the mainstream!?!

So I guess if the story isn’t uber-scary (despite being only vaguely semi-accurate) like Four Corners last week (http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2009/s2655088.htm) or Web Warriors (http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2008/webwarriors/) then it’s not valid for ‘mainstream’ audiences.

Pick up your game media-junkies (I mean politicians) and you ‘mainstream’ media types - either learn to live on the learning curve or fail like the Fairfax papers ;p
(how could they have missed the (obvious) opportunity of moving the ‘rivers-of-gold’ online?!?)

(FWIW - Last weeks festival of new-media-fear on ABC1 seemed pretty suss to quite a few types).

The majority of Australians use the internet. Australians now spend more hours a week doing stuff online than watching TV or reading newspapers. But reporting on stuff that happens on the internet is still seen as something for specialist IT publishers or, if it’s affecting the share price, perhaps the business pages.

I contend that we’d see a lot more coverage up the front of the book if it were highway, shipping or railway capacity that was being increased 50%.

Where are the ABC stories? What are the Fairfax publications doing?

Anyway…

@Rowan: What does it mean for the average user? More capacity and more competition means, ultimately, faster internet connections to other countries at cheaper prices — particularly for the smaller ISPs, who now have an alternative to buying from Telstra and Optus etc.

The ridicule that Ted Stevens received for this analogy is unfortunate. Sure, he’s well past retirement age, he bumbles a lot, I probably don’t agree with many of his political views, and he even misuses some terminology. But his “it’s a series of tubes, it’s not a big truck” analogy is actually quite a good one.

maybe it requires some kind of a car analogy

Wee, you know, it’s not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck.

Though realistically, i suspect it was becuase there was no good ‘hard hat/high visibility vest’ photo opportunity for our politicians. They love those you know.