Labor stunt creates fake brand Abbott’s Internet: The slow broadband plan of the future
Creative and technology agency The Royals has created a stunt for Labor involving the creation of satirical brand Abbotts’s Internet, which it then tried to promote around the world as a new broadband service.
The stunt was designed to provoke negative reactions from consumers who already have better Internet services than Labor claims the Liberals plan to deliver with their downsized proposals for the National Broadband Network.
At the time of posting, a YouTube video uploaded yesterday featuring the reaction of consumers around the world has had more than 100,000 views.
The plan also included fake Facebook ads for Abbott’s Internet, which again triggered negative posts from consumers pointing out the apparent slowness of the plan.
Labor is attempting to make its differing vision for the NBN a key election battleground. Labor plans to connect optical fibre to the door of most homes and businesses in Australia while the Liberal plan sees the high speed connection going only to the end of each street.
The Abbott’s Internet page explains the stunt and links to Labor’s I Want My NBN website.
The Royals picked up the Labor brief to target young people after Naked Communications was fired over an apparent attempt to link an interview with PM Kevin Rudd with free advertising.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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What an absolute joke of a campaign, anyone who supports Labor is a complete idiot. The NBN has already gone way over budget with no foreseeable completion date. The coalition is just trying to save costs for more important things while Labor spends billions on a stone age internet system.
Wireless is where the future is, yet the two political parties argue about who can make themselves look stupider. At the moment they are both winning the idiocracy.
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Like it – good job.
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The 7th of September, yeah? We can finally end this nightmare…
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@Brad The precise criticism was made about the national rail network, the national highway system and the original copper network back in the 1900s.
It’s the 21st century and we need 21st century infrastructure. It’s a huge shame that the NBN has turned into a nasty political football. We’re sick of it. We just need a good, world-class network.
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@Brad
I think you might be missing Ben Fordham on 2GB. Broadband infrastructure and wireless are not mutually exclusive they compliment each other both technically and from consumer usage POV. Cite Google investing very large dollars into Google Fiber, I think they have a pretty good handle on this tech thing and are backing it big time.
Yes the Coalition is trying to save money so they can get elected for the next 6 years, their solution is using half solution built on cooper wire infrastructure which is degrading so fast it costs $1 billion a year to maintain. Telstra has already valued their cooper infrastructure (outside line revenue of course) simply on the price they would get to scrap it.
I do not mind who people vote for but base it actually taking the time to look into policies (whoever creates them) and longer term implications vs referencing Daily Telegraph headlines. You are better than that.
Only way I can think of this NBN thing is this. If you had to build a road outside your house you could either:
1) build cheap dirt road (to be replaced in a few years)
2) spend more and invest in bitumen and not have to replace it for many years
In short I would throw the term “complete idiot” around loosely.
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@Brad Wow! Not only do you demonstrate little understanding of the science and technology involved (that wireless cannot scale indefinitely) and what the industry and its experts are saying (that both fixed line and wireless will continue to co-exist), but you conveniently forget that the Coalition are also building a fibre network, albeit one that will terminate on your street instead of your home. Congratulations! You win the idiot’s trifecta!
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This is easily the best idea to come out of the election campaigning so far.
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@Brad you are the joke making comments like that. I agree with @Jarrod – great to finally see a great creative idea in what’s been an extraordinarily dull campaign by both parties up until this point. Well done Royals.
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Well done Royals.
You’ve done everything and more you could’ve done with that brief, so the following isn’t a reflection on your work.
Labor’s NBN is a joke.
Originally costed at $5b, now expected to cost $90b.
After 6 years and NBN has been delivered to only 2% of Australia.
Current expected completion date – 2033!
The sooner they’re kicked out the better.
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Guys, guys..! Let’s not debate the technicalities of the NBN vs. Fraudband. There are other places for that. Let’s just stick to saying how great the work is, ok?
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Very clever stuff.
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$5b originally?
Expected cost > $90b?
Troll.
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Well played. Good original angle and gets a point across.
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Great work. You could easily generate extensions of this message to different target segments (non-youth) such as business or remote use etc to point out the disadvantage of a ‘cheaper’ short term solution which in the long term will harm Australia’s productivity and competitiveness with other countries.
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Yes Ad Grunt, $5b. Go back and check Labor’s and Conroy’s launch announcements.
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@Facts – where does that $90B figure come from? Oh that’s right, the Coalition. So in other words, not worth the paper it’s printed on.
Come back to me in a few years when the Libs announce that unfortunately they need to re-do the NBN as the copper has degraded and we’ll talk ‘Facts’.
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anyone who wants #fraudband is an IDIOT!
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The future is Wireless with Fibre backhaul and WiFi and 4G pulling 100Mb Plus. The NBN is just a money pit where giant ICT companies feed off the contracts that Steve Conroy handed to them. I wouldn’t let Steve Conroy mange the building of my kids indoor cubby house!
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Dear Royals guys, a parallel ot tandem execution could have shown a fast-paced action movie sequence slowing down at a critical moment, flickering a bit, then defaulting to an on-screen message like “Abbott Internet apologises for this download meltdown. It was the only way to grab power. Normal service will resume shortly after Malcom’s coup. Thankyou for your patience.”
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Congratulations, you have done a very good job of selling a half truth based upon an unknown.
The use of copper is not such a foolish idea given that the structure is already in place and the speed ( not nearly so fast as the rest of the world) will not be adversely affected by it.
Call it “old technology” if you wish, but what will the next generation bring? How can we be sure that the internet will not be wireless and miniscule by that time? Certainly if it advances as it has been doing, with the full touch screen replacing the mobile phone and internet available to a card sized screen housed in your shirt pocket, this whole argument could be a rather boring page in history .
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Brad are you the leader of the Flat Earth Society?
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Dear @AJ.
1] At launch, Labor announced the NBN would cost $5b. Indisputable.
2] Labor has acknowledged NBN current costs are $45b [900% over budget – so far]. Indisputable.
3] SMH [the independent always lovey left paper] says that whilst $90b is not guaranteed, if Labor are returned to office and continue with their NBN plans as is, $90b is not indisputable, but certainly a possibility.
4] I didn’t say I wanted the Libs broadband program – I prefer Labor’s plan. But I’ve had enough of their absolute ineptness when it comes to managing our taxes. Labor is hopeless with money. Indisputable.
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Pssst. Latest FTN costing. It’s blown out to $147.38 billion due to the copper maintenance and replacement cost. Pass it on.
Yeah, I know, I just made it up but at least it puts it on par with the $90b figure.
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Nightmare ending 7th=Murdoch’s campaign against ALP. Gd broadband threatens Murdoch’s stranglehold on Oz media so he must kill it (&ALP)
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@AJ. Treasury’s admonishment of Labor’s claims against the Coalition’s savings just proves even the public service don’t trust Labor’s claims when it comes to money. The NBN might be a good idea – but if you can’t provide a plan to support its introduction, can’t manage its implementation, can’t manage its cost – you don’t deserve to stay in government.
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Conversely, it is hard to cost something when there is no detail, which surely is important too. Dumb move though!
he costings were based on the public posturings and comments of the LNP so they do represent ‘best guess’ given the information vacuum from the Opposition. But get used to the information vacuum post Sept 7 – it’s gonna be a bumpy ride full of “trust me”.
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To the people saying we shouldn’t invest in the NBN because Wireless is the new technology please actually get a clue.
That is honestly like saying we shouldn’t invest in upgrading our highways because flying cars are the future.
If you don’t know anything about technology please don’t have a comment on it.
Australia’s internet is a joke, we barely scrape into the top 50 countries based on average internet speed at 49 on http://www.netindex.com/
To those that think the speed difference doesn’t matter – I’m fairly young and have fairly limited industry experience but even I have witnessed how this affects our productivity – need to transfer 100mb Photoshop files between clients / offices?
There goes 2-3 hours.
Need to send the latest TVC for approval to the client?
There goes 4 hours. (Hell, its quicker in most cases just to drive a USB to the client than upload it anywhere).
The amount of hours lost at even just my low level is staggering. I can only imagine how limiting it must be for some other industries and professionals.
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Great campaign.
Let’s hope the true NBN gets rolled out regardless of who comes into office.
Though I fear uncle Rupert will be calling in favours come the 9th of September
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Has anyone noticed that NBN Co. is not a Commonwealth Government owned Company but its website only states it is a “Commonwealth Company” that could mean anything. It most probably means its a sink hole for all Australians stupid enough to sign up and donate $80 per month per household to the labor fund. It has 1600 employees who it pays 222 million per year, most of it to board directors and CEO of labor imagined credibility. The CEO is on $1.9 million!! And he has to be given 12 months notice if we fire him. They have already made payouts of over $1million to outgoing board members.
Ther was no mention in the financials of how they intended to pay back the $30 billion and we, the tax payers are contracted to pay their company cost until 2025. Nice one Julia.
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@AJ. Maybe you’d like to reply to Democrat 5:40pm. But I doubt you will.
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Why? Because a political party with no less than 125 lawyers, solicitors and barristers at the top of the food chain couldn’t possibly be expected to get the legal jargon right when they wrote up the company website and posted their annual statement? Ppffftt! Lol,
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Well! That worked, didn’t it!
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Last word Junkie?
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