Posts by Rich of Observationz
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WTF? You're not using contraception? Do you actually want a baby right now?
I don't know for sure, but I believe a lot of health educators feel that the calm approach is more effective, in the same way as not telling kids that one puff on a joint will turn them into a character in Trainspotting.
Part of the point of these magazines is that they're not written by one's dad. Not to mention that telling kids that something is bad, evil and reserved for adults isn't exactly going to put them off.
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As teenage lads we used to love reading the problem page in Jackie and the like. They had one feature where they would print answers without questions, e.g:
LL:
No, you can't get pregnant that way. You shouldn't do it, because you could catch a very nasty nasal infection.MC:
Do *not* let your boyfriend do this to you. It might be true that anything is normal in the context of a loving relationship. But that isn't! -
under the gum tree
You have gum trees in Dundee?
Would you consider Telecom's existing network to be low-risk if it was entirely expropriated and turned into an SOE?
Depends. Assuming that it gets enhanced with FTTC or whatever else works commercially, and that the government doesn't subsidise a competitor, then low-medium risk. (Like I say, Vector is my idea of a low risk utility - people can't get their juice any other way).
But an interesting point. If I had Telecom stock, I think I'd prefer that the government compulsorily purchased the copper than dropped a competing network in. The former they'd have to pay for, the latter they could just do.
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You wouldn’t get that from Mugabe
I think Mugabe would have the entire staff of Air NZ impaled on stakes if he had to suffer the "revamp" that's going on in the Wellington Koru lounge at the moment.
But then, he wouldn't be able to fly anywhere. Come to think of it, he probably *has* had the entire staff of Air Zim impaled on stakes, and consequently can't fly anywhere.
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Well, with both Iridium and CDMA supposedly intelligent people with access to all the best advice made a bum decision.
I think the problem with Iridium in the early 90's, when the decison was made to build it, wasn't the technical problems that Russell rightly highlights. It was more that the rate of GSM deployment was vastly underestimated, so that by the time the very expensive satellite system was ready, very few people had a need for a satphone.
My point is really that any new technology deployment has a lot of risk. A low risk utility is something like Vector that knows its exact income stream into the distant future.
(Unless of course, somebody else, like the government, assumes the risk and simply pays a company to build and operate the network for a flat fee).
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Matthew: If networks are always low risk, what about Iridium, or Telecom's CDMA white elephant. Both of those work fine, but failed to meet business expectations.
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Network infrastructure isn't something that should generate spectacular returns. It's meant to be a safe investment, not an especially profitable one.
That implies low risk. Installing a fibre network when you have no idea on takeup and acceptable pricing isn't low risk, in my book.
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I don't think that the NZ government should be making the technical call on what to use.
Rather, how about setting requirements for a 5 year and 10 year schedule, e.g:
5yr: 75% with 20Mbit, 95% with 2M, everyone (including rural) with 512k
10yr: 75% with 100M, 95% with 20M, everyone with 2MThen put the implementation for each district out to tender using whatever technolology mix the tenderer wants, WiMax from lampposts or whatever.
There would need to be some access rules, and arrangements for e.g. Telecom copper to be acquired at a fair price, but not one that reflects a monopoly position.
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what price would you pay for...
About $50, same as now. I don't plan to budget any more for internettery.
But it's not what *I* would pay for the service. It's what an average household would pay - or, more specifically, the price/adoption curve.
Taking a small group of early adopters (like the readers of PA, I suspect) and extrapolating to the whole country is a bit of an obvious fallacy.
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Has realism set in :-)
We have Telstra fibre at both Auckland and Wellington (fringe CBD) offices. With 1MBit of bandwidth, coz it's uneconomical to go over that. I'd assume they'd connect any kind of premise if one was willing to pay the price, no?
I'm unconvinced on the upgradability of passive networks. If it gets built out with 100G bandwidth say, wouldn't all the users need to upgrade equipment at once for 1G bandwidth? Personally, I'd want to see a very solid answer on upgradability before any FTTH rollout was started - otherwise we might get another situation like in Wellington.
Also, I think one has to be careful that the system is affordable. If 10% of households took the service up, that'd be around 30k of capital per line. So about 3k a year just to cover the interest. It gets better as takeup increases, but unless you made fibre compulsory, i can see a lot of people sticking with copper/sky/freeview.
Maybe the best business model for this is the Iridium one: get wealthy and dumb investors to fund it, let in go bankrupt, then have a new owner step in without the debt.