Comments on recent posts from Roger De Salis and Josh Bailey While I have no real personal disagreement with the sentiment Roger's post expresses, I do have some concerns about the way that the government might be involved in such a venture; I would personally prefer to see government get its own information policies in order (ie, developing a comprehensive vision for e-government in NZ) rather than plunging straight into building an infrastructure that might be done better by others. I do have some problems with what Josh Bailey has to say. Who is paying for the Cisco in the pizza parlour? I doubt if it is a government initiative; be it Californian or Federal. There has been some interesting stuff put out by Paul Budde recently (see the most recent 'Friday Fryup' from Russell Brown) about the impact (or lack) of NZ's telecommunications competition policy and has some bearing on the comment about the cost of 64K circuits in NZ. (Albeit, these comments are not really accepted in the place that I work.) Note that 64K circuits have never cost US$30K/m in NZ ... China had, and still has, some way to do to catch up, frankly. In commenting on the 'aisle' of Ciscos observed in Korea: it is perhaps possible that Telecom NZ has such as facility, I do not know. I am not aware of a serious lack of overseas data capacity for New Zealand at present (I would be very interested to know if there is in fact such a lack of capacity). The future seems reasonably secure with the prospect of the Southern Cross cable opening next year (increasing present overseas data carrying capacity by a factor of 100, I believe). There are serious bandwidth users in NZ. While I do not personally wish to carry any particular flame for Telecom NZ, I do know that Peter Jackson has had very good co-operation in having his on and off shore needs for very large bandwidth met by them (no doubt at a cost!). I personally believe there are concerns about local loop issues in NZ that need addressing but I have no concerns about national or international infrastructure where there is abundant competitive pressure and opportunity. The Internet in NZ has (& is) expanded (ing) very quickly. NZ has one of the top 10 Internet penetrations in the world (ahead of Australia, all of middle and southern Europe and miles ahead of Korea and the rest of Asia). There are issues about e-commerce development in NZ, certainly, if the Ernst Young report from early this year is to be believed. I am also very concerned about the apparent denigration of the need to develop and focus on post industrial economic models for NZ (ie the knowledge economy) by both politicians and media commentators in the current election campaign. But, Josh, if you really have a concern it has to be better directed and expressed than the comments you make in your post. Frank March

-----Original Message----- From: Josh Bailey [SMTP:josh(a)ascend.com] Sent: Wednesday, 24 November 1999 13:09 To: Roger De Salis Cc: isocnz-members(a)isocnz.org.nz; nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Subject: Re: [Fwd: Fwd: FCC Approves Line Sharing 11/18/1999]

On Wed, 24 Nov 1999, Roger De Salis wrote:

...

This country needs to build a very high speed, low cost communications network with Universal access in the same way that it needed to build railways in the last century, and roads and airports in this.

It's becoming increasingly embarrassing being a New Zealander internationally - just last week I tripped over a Cisco 675 being installed in a pizza parlour on Telegraph, right next to Berkeley university - even the homeless here "browse the 'Net." In South-East China it used to cost $30K/US a month for a 64K circuit and you were lucky if it stood up for a few days at a time - now there are bright shiny new NAPs built on literally dirt floors that put New Zealand's to shame. I asked Korea Telecom's 'Net operations manager once where his overseas feeds came in, and he nonchanantly indicated an *aisle* of 10-15 Cisco 7513s allocated just for that purpose.

What other way can I say it? I turn my back on my country!

New Zealand isn't interested in playing. Reliable and capacious Internet access is two steps forward, one step back with a wobble for good measure between steps. Culturally New Zealanders do not take the Internet seriously. It is very clear from the outside looking in that NZ politicians reflect the attitudes of their majorities quite accurately.

In summarising and following on from your point Roger - it seems the only way to get Powers To Be to listen is to walk out. Like other people of my generation/age group/ambitions/industry, I can't wait for my country to catch up with my future.

-- Josh Bailey (mailto:joshbailey(a)lucent.com) lucent->ins->software->alameda[CA]

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