I spy 100Mbps

One of the funniest things about the National Broadband Network debate is the persistent myth that no-one could conceivably use 100Mbps data speeds at home. That, and Malcolm Turnbull's selective deafness when folks explain otherwise. But let's have another go, shall we?

It's 5.30pm, and the family is at home. Parents Lisa and David are both still working.

Lisa is a geologist, managing one of Western Australia's biggest mines. Most of the grunt work is done by robots, with only essential maintenance staff on site, and most of that is controlled from an operations room in Perth. But it was easier and cheaper to let Lisa work from her home near Ballarat than persuade her to relocate to WA.

On one screen, Lisa keeps an eye on a couple of high-definition TV images streamed live from the mine (say 2 x 5Mbps). On another she manipulates a 3D model of rock strata (10Mbps) that she's discussing via video with a consultant in Queensland and her boss in Perth (5Mbps).

Her husband David is HR manager with a major property developer. His PA, Melissa, is in Toowoomba. They work closely through telepresence. Both David and Melissa have normal office computer screens in front of them. But on David's left sits another screen showing Melissa at her desk, and on Melissa's right a screen shows David.

With constant live sound and vision each way (10Mbps) it's just like they were seated next to each other, especially when a second high-res video stream (10Mbps) lets them show each other hand-written notes and other non-digital objects – including their kids' sporting trophies, helping maintain the workplace's social bonds.

We're already at 45Mbps and we haven't even started on Joshua working on his history homework with three classmates across town (10Mbps). Or Emily slacking off and watching movies (5Mbps). Or Jessica's appointment with her dermatologist  (10Mbps).

And, given that the NBN's 100Mbps connection can be sliced into at least four separate, secure channels, let's not forget possibilities like home security cameras beaming HD imagery back to a monitoring centre (10Mbps).

None of this is blue-sky stuff. All of it involves known, well-understood hardware and software being deployed to take advantage of higher bandwidth.

“Much of this vision [of robotic mining] already exists today or is being developed by research teams in Australia,” wrote Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte last year. His team at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney is a world leader.

High-end three-screen telepresence systems consume about 15Mbps of bandwidth. The full-room hardware is expensive now, sure. But for a quick office-grade set-up you could, today, grab a couple of 27-inch screens and HD webcams for less than the cost of a high-end office chair. An entry-level computer could handle the video. All that's missing is the bandwidth.

When the bandwidth is available, when the potential market for telepresence hardware is not in the dozens of units but the hundreds of thousands, prices will inevitably plummet.

Now NBN opponents like to point to individual applications and say, “That doesn't need 100Mbps.” But that's disingenuous. People and, especially, families and small businesses don't use the internet one application at a time. Things happen in parallel. You need to add the bandwidth requirements together so that David doesn't have to shut down his office so Jessica can receive medical advice.

(You'll also see the disingenuous trick of pointing to an individual NBN application and saying, “That doesn't justify the cost.” Again, it ignores the need to add up all of the benefits – including the reduced need for transport infrastructure when more people telecommute.)

Opponents also like saying that not everyone will need or even want 100Mbps. That's also true. But that's like saying not everyone needs or wants wider traffic lanes because they, personally, drive a Hyundai Getz. 

The opponents who still valiantly push the idea that wireless or hybrid fibre-coax (HFC) cable could do all this cheaper than fibre to the premises are being disingenuous too. While those technologies might be able to deliver comparable download speeds – for now at least – their upload speeds are relatively pitiful.

Emily might be able to watch her movies, but forget about the active participation of Lisa, David, Joshua and Jessica because you just won't get the upload speed for all their video streams.

Actually there's another funny thing about all this: the government's complete inability to counter this no-use-for-fibre-speeds myth. The own goal of Tuesday's National Digital Economy Strategy, setting national targets to justify the NBN that don't require the NBN, was particularly chuckleworthy.

Yet, as it happens, DBCDE has already made a 7-minute video that says pretty much all of what I've just said, At home with the NBN. Multiple family members running multiple live video and data streams without interfering with each other.

The video has some flaws. I would gleefully stab the smug whitebread middle-class family it depicts, because it reinforces the myth that the NBN isn't for the battlers. The work of a factory shift leader is about supervising people – and that's still best done by watching what they're doing, looking them in the eye and having a quick word. The NBN enables that remotely too. The transparent computer screens give the impression this is some far-distant future, not just around the corner. And don't get me started on the frivolity of the mother shopping for a new dress.

Now there's lots to criticise about the NBN project. But applications to use its fibre capacity are here today, ready and waiting. Can we please kill this myth once and for all?

Stilgherrian is a writer, broadcaster and consultant covering the intersection of technology, politics and the media. He majored in computing science, has used online services heavily since the mid-1980s, and has worked as a network administrator.