I Do Not Stammer (normally)

I’m not going to bore you with politics because our two major political parties are barely different, making the choice impossible. However, it is a well known fact that Australia has one of the worst internet/broadband networks in the world. Yet we’re so far away from civilisation who do you think needs it the most?

The issue of widespread and improved broadband has been an election promise of both parties in contention and is now gaining weight. And the “Australia Connected” initiative has been born to bring fast broadband to city and rural communities. Labor’s plan, should they be elected, is to to invest $4.7 billion in cross-country fibre optic networks delivering minimum speeds of 12 megabits a second.

The good thing is that our emails and/or voice won’t have to kangaroo hop half way around the world, taking the longest route, to actually get to their destination. Or so the theory goes . . .

After attempting to talk to a couple of US pals on Sunday, I realised how truly shit our internet is. I have ADSL at home, it’snot the best but it’s OK. I can gasbag to the Irish, the English and the New Zealanders with ease and no break up or delay, however, it seems the east coast of the States is out of bounds. It could have been a ‘hopping’ issue as I was technically informed as one server tried to find another as if it had bought a round the world air ticket and could only progress in one direction – obviously it took the long route via Asfuckistan.

I don’t care about bits and mips, bytes or bandwidth. . . I just want to be able to make a phone call to the US without m-e-e-e-e-e- s-o-u-n-d-i-i-i-i-i-i-ing, like I have a st-a-a-a-a-a-amm-e-e-e-er or without hearing my own voice on delay 20 seconds later which leads to the longest silences on the line you can imagine .

Then again, it could have been something to do with our foul winter weather, a summer storm brewing in Atlanta, or a wombat digging up the copper cable in Cunamulla!