I love this country - Australia that is.

But I find it frustrating to be here sometimes.

Over the last few days I have been to several events which re-inforce my belief that everyone here tends to be in a bubble. First I went to a lunch with the Chairman of ACMA

Then I went to an evening event put on by AIMIA.

There was one disturbing trait that I witnessed - and not by the Chairman of ACMA, Chris Chapman or by Mike Walsh whose AIMIA event I went to...

But by the large majority of people who attended both. There is a belief among Australia's professional classes in the telecommunications, new media, etc etc space (in my opinion) that by espousing a belief that we need to achieve world's best practice in what we do, we have already achieved it.

People here think that because we talk about broadband we actually have it! Not with Telstra choking our uploads in the way they do.

Until the professionals in this country (like the wealthy bourgeousie during the period prior to the French Revolution) actually wake up and smell the coffee and talk about the problems we are facing in business because of the lack of real high bandwidth connectivity, we will keep drifting. Like a ship drifting toward an iceberg with the engines off, unless Australia recognizes the need to get on the front foot with broadband, we will assuredly hit that iceberg and become a third world country in every respect.