I've just attended a national broadband network briefing at Victor Harbor that was hosted by the Victor Harbor Council. It was more information about a fibre network that goes beyond the political point scoring that pours out of Canberra these days or The Australian's campaign against the NBN that is is based on fear uncertainty and doubt and a mantra about cost benefit analysis. The NBN Co talked about ubiquitous access, which is also intended to be affordable as well (unlike mobile data services) and bandwidth, lots of bandwidth (here though, you get what you pay for).

Stilgherrian's Patch Monday podcast for ZDNet.com.au discusses this:

This is the information we received. Victor Habor's regional backhaul to Adelaide, which is being constructed by NetGen, will be completed by March 2011. That means we wait for the National Broadband Network Co to build the last mile from the local exchange to the premises. When will that happen? That is unclear. What I gathered is that the first site in SA is Willunga, the second sites are McLaren Vale and Seaford. The third site? Nothing is settled. What we were told is that the infrastructure building will be organic----moving out from what has been already been built.

So we can move beyond the ADSL in the near future? We need to because the backhaul chokes up often and it becomes impossible to work.

What we have with the NBN Co is a concerted attempt to fix a decade of failed telecoms policy, breathe life into a privately-controlled network even Telstra is winding down, and improve communications services to people that haven't a snowball's chance of getting it otherwise.