So, first the NBN 'Fraudband fiasco' and now this — Abbot's government is now apparently trying to enforce mandatory internet filtering onto Australian ISP's, which according to ZdNet:
The policy comes less than 41 hours before polls open for voting in the federal election where the Coalition is currently expected to win. It is also almost a year after the Labor government abandoned its plans for mandatory internet filtering, and three years after the Coalition announced that it would not support a policy for mandatory internet filtering.
Source ZDnet
Given the severe backlash that Conroy received in 2012 regarding the filter, it strikes me as rather odd for the Libs to even consider the plan — according to their statement (PDF document)
“This is a very different approach to the discredited compulsory filter proposal championed by the Rudd-Gillard government, which was abandoned as unworkable. The Coalition’s approach aims to empower parents — by giving them the choice of whether or not to operate a filter at home, [and] by establishing the default setting as one which provides maximum protection.”
“The Coalition will ensure there is an effective complaints system, backed by legislation, to
get harmful material down fast from large social media sites. Our approach responds to the very clear message received in our community consultations: when children are the subject of harmful material online, it is vital to have a way to get it down fast. Too often that is not available today.”
So it appears they're trying to win over the conservative voting crowd — mainly the mums and dads who worry about what their kids get up to on the Internet and who immediately raise their hands when shown the "Think of the children!" drawcard.
I'd personall would like the government to explain:
- How much will it cost taxpayers?
- By adding an additional layer to the network, what are the performance overheads (in terms of d.l. speed?)
- What is exactly on the blacklist?
- How easy is it (for kids, anyone) to bypass such a filter and render it ineffective?
- Who actually asked for it?
What do you think, citizens of Ozbargain Australia? Yay or Nay?
Update: Malcolm turnbull on the filter
Update!: The Coalition has done a backflip on the filter scheme. Video and news after the break. The original PDF document is gone and is now replaced by Turnbull stating that the Coalition has never supported ISP Filtering.
The policy which was issued today was poorly worded and incorrectly indicated that the
Coalition supported an “opt out” system of internet filtering for both mobile and fixed line
services. That is not our policy and never has been.
The correct position is that the Coalition will encourage mobile phone and internet service
providers to make available software which parents can choose to install on their own devices
to protect their children from inappropriate material.
Hi Bruce thanks for the comments. I have some to add, just my angle on the whole thing.
Everything is compressed (that is how the internet works) because there is no point delivering media beyond the human capacity to absorb, and a lot of data can be compressed without loss or nearly without loss (especially for fuzzy data like video (compare png to jpeg for example).
The differences between a full blown Bluray (30Gb+) vs a properly compressed 5-8Gb version are not visually noticeable by many human eyes. Even if they are, the differences are so small they are not important.
In the rare instance this kind of high resolution is required, then the user can always pay for a higher quality of service. Right now if i were to stream each Bluray uncompressed, i would be paying $79 per month for 15 movies. Its cheaper to go and support the dying Blockbuster franchise.
And the second thing is - where will anyone find a fully streaming 56mbps video from online? Not one service will send an uncompressed version - it makes no fiscal sense to do so. In the future maybe, but then its hard to predict what is coming.
That is contention, and up to the Telco to decide how much capacity they pump into the area. It is throttled like everything else.
Like I said before, the problem is not with the speed to your home from the node, it is the problem of lack of speed beyond that. Having a gigabit connection from home to node is not going to improve anything if the pipe to the US is only delivering at 6mbps. This is not an infrastructure problem, its a profit making one. The Telcos are throttling in a big way in order to maximise profits. Download managers may or may not improve that, but then you are adding another layer of 3rd party to your stack.
The Telstra DOCS service has a total upload capacity of 120mbps, via 4 x 30mbps channels. They have it seriously throttled to 2mbps right now.
100mps is plenty for right now. I didn't say that is the final answer. Moore's law is still valid, and we are more than doubling our potential speed every year. I don't think there will be any problem keeping up with demand, especially considering that we are already not being supplied the optimal available speeds. "Let the people live on a tolerable level of speed, don't get them too excited, and make a healthy profit in the process" seems to be mantra by the Telcos.
The current problem is that those tall ugly metal trees sometimes kilometres away are not the ideal way to deliver high speed internet (too noisy, too much contention). That wasn't the idea at all. The idea is to deliver the fibre to street corners, have a high strength wireless transmitters that can deliver a much higher bandwidth at the shorter distance. People have been working on this type of delivery for decades (a physicist friend who worked for Marconi said they had a patent for this in the 90s), and it is now becoming realised and the way to go forward. It is scalable, easy to upgrade, and less fraught with the same kind of problems that copper has now has (broken fibres underground due to unexpected shovel, water getting into the underground electronics etc).
Well its all moot now. Fingers crossed Malcolm is cleverer than I think he is.