The debate surrounding Australia’s broadband future took an interesting turn last week when the Federal Opposition unveiled its alternative broadband plan. Offering slower speeds but at a faster pace of implementation than the current NBN, the plan drew a  mostly negative response from industry observers.

I’ve got strong views on the importance of broadband to Australia’s future, and have been a strong supporter of much of the plan being deployed by the NBN. While deployment progress has been disappointing, the current NBN proposal will see the replacement of aging infrastructure to future-proof Australia’s communications needs into at least the next decade, and most probably many more beyond.

Hence when I was contacted by the Sydney Morning Herald to offer a comment I made this statement in relation to the Opposition’s policy, and my view that we need to be building for the future, not just for today.

Slower broadband is better than no broadband, but it would be a terrible shame to lose the opportunity currently in front of us without a solid and independent analysis of the various options available.

But what if the Internet were to stop working? This article carried in Fairfax media asks that question. While through its very nature the Internet is a highly robust network, the fact that we are so reliant on it today means that its loss would be immediately noticeable – and quite possibly in a devastating manner. And with the Spamhaus cyberattacks wreaking havoc across the Internet, it is worth asking whether or not we have a Plan B.