The NBN transition: We’ve done this before

Right now, most Australians get Internet access through ADSL broadband, at speeds ranging from 1 to 20 megabits. The NBN, when it’s complete, will deliver speeds of 1000 megabits to most Australian homes. This is a game\-changer on the order of what happened when we moved from dialup (0\.05 megabit) to our current broadband. So we can learn from what happened during that transition to inform what may happen in this one.  Services that require high speeds, like streaming video, torrent downloads, and online gaming, as well as services that require an always\-on connection like Facebook and chat services, and ones that require both like Skype \- were all completely inconceivable when we were all on dialup. I’m going to repeat that. They were INCONCEIVABLE. Literally not able to be conceived. Services like these require mass populations all on a high speed (or an always\-on) network. Until a large population base has that kind of a connection, the services wouldn’t have worked. 

Same thing with the NBN. We’re doing the move from ordinary broadband to NBN. The capacity and speed it can offer will completely change the kinds of services offered. Right now, we literally cannot conceive of what it will bring us. It won’t be “like now, but faster”. It will be something completely different.

Therefore, trying to predict an NBN future based on the current state of the art is not only misleading, but counterproductive. The current paradigm will be completely disrupted by the NBN, and will create opportunities for services that we can’t even conceive of yet.