Metro cousin don't understand bush's need for NBN

This was glaringly obvious in Peter J. Cox's article ("Broadband plan is smoke and mirrors", Focus, 11-12/9) and other commentators also make the same mistake.

They miss the point that a large number of people now operate home-based businesses on either a full-time or part-time basis and that access to high-speed internet is critical to make this work. High-speed broadband will make a huge difference in efficiencies and costs with access to VOIP (voice over internet protocol) telephony alone cutting communications costs by 70 per cent. This home-office phenomenon is not just restricted to metropolitan areas. Regional Australia has a high number of home-based workers like me, and with current urban migration patterns, this trend is increasing. In my area, Telstra will not upgrade the local exchange to provide additional ADSL ports and cannot supply broadband to my office/home.

Anyone who has tried wireless or satellite-based broadband will know that these are not viable alternatives for anything but the most basic email and web-surfing activities. If our metro cousins were forced to use either of them, there'd be riots in the street.