After eight years and spending tens of billions of dollars on the national broadband network, all that Australia has to show is 50th position when it comes to speeds.
Forget that position; if the speed itself was good, then it doesn't matter. But that isn't the case – it was an average of 11.1Mbps, according to the content delivery network provider Akamai.
When it came to peak speeds, Australia's best was 55.7 Mbps and it took 64th position – even behind Sri Lanka which was in the throes of a crippling civil war for 26 years from 1983 to 2009.
New Zealand, a country that is often derided by Australians, was 27th on the list for average speeds and 35th for peak speeds. The sensible options adopted by its main NBN rollout agent, Chorus, were detailed yesterday. No avoiding responsibility there, the way our NBN Co does.
{loadposition sam08}The chief executive of any organisation who spent that amount of money and took that amount of time to achieve such a disastrous result would be unlikely to hold down his or her job.
But have no fear, there is absolutely no chance that Bill Morrow will be on the next plane back to the US. Politicians have been responsible for the catastrophe and when did one of them ever take responsibility for anything that went horribly wrong?
The old remedy is the best: just stop talking about it.
Part of the blame should, no doubt, be apportioned to the people of this country, who tend to complain when things go wrong but rarely bother to take corrective measures when the chance to do so comes around. Apathy is an awful thing.
When the chance to change the administration was offered last July, it wasn't accepted. One has no problem with politicians of any hue, but they should be willing to accept that they know nothing about technology and allow an agnostic to select it.
There are plenty of such people around – there is much truth in the saying that Australia is a country of lions ruled by donkeys.
But will the politicians ever listen? No, they love to politicise every little thing and make it a vehicle for harvesting votes.
So, despite all the criticism of Morrow, he is also a servant of his masters. And they wanted this terrible mix of technologies that will end up costing the country an awful lot.
It is a matter of sadness that the NBN is not a topic that gets people's attention – except when things go wrong and one needs to find someone to take the blame.
After a while, one does get tired of making this argument over and over again. It is the people's money and surely they have the right to demand something decent?
But when even network speeds are seen in political shades, what hope in hell is there?