Autumn bit speed- Broadband Aussie style

As another beautifully warm autumn day winds down towards sunset, I turn on my laptop to see what friends and family have been up to today. Turning on the internet is a daily phenomenon, often with the laptop kept on all day, checking email, looking up information and uploading photos to my flickr account.
How did we survive before the internet and social media?
Last night as I was struggling to upload 6 photos to Facebook, my youngest arrived home from work. As he works at a major ISP we turned to discussing the National Broadband Network and the various political parties policies.
Surprisingly I have had a couple of friends and colleagues ask me to explain the options-
Labor's Optical Fibre to the house (faster, simpler, costlier) vs the Coalitions "Fast, affordable,sooner" hybrid policy ( Optical fibre to the node and copper to your house, unless you want to order and pay for the last bit yourself -$3000-$5000 anyone?).
This immediately brought to mind the history of another major Australian infrastructure project. Railways in the late 19th Century and 20th Century turned up a hodge-podge of different gauges and procedures in various parts of Australia. The Melbourne to Sydney rail line was "joined" through a platform, in 1883, but the gauge not standardized until 1962. For all those years, travelling from Melbourne to Sydney mean't changing trains with all the inconvenience and inefficiency this entailed.
This time though we can choose to have a huge, costly project done properly. Or we can choose to do a bit now and then pay more for it to be done later.

Old fashioned living - Aussie Style

I wonder how long it will take in this vast, harsh country? Hopefully not as long as the rail link.
Many of Australia's current inefficiencies result from decisions made more than 100 years ago and not changed in time. Education systems, transport, environmental policies and too many politicians to name a few.

Lets not add Broadband into the inefficient mix - we deserve better, particularly regional Australians.