One faster: how fast is your internet?

Things to think about

1. Before viewing

Imagine you had to explain a concept like the NBN to someone who knew nothing about it. What pieces of information would you need to share with them? How might you structure this information (that is, what order or sequence could you use to make it easy to understand)?

2. As you view

Kirsty, the reporter, begins by providing some background information. What internet access existed before broadband? What simile does Kirsty use to explain what broadband is?

Next, she explains the problems associated with dial-up and regular broadband. Why is the example of downloading a movie useful?

Finally, Kirsty looks to the future: what solutions does the fibre-optic NBN program provide, according to the clip?

3. After viewing

What do you notice about the sequencing of information in this story?

Two structures common to information texts have been used here: chronological order and problem-solution. What does chronological mean? What information is provided in this order? What forms the problem and the solution here? Why do you think current affairs shows so frequently use the problem-solution structure?

4. Next steps

What does the type of information included in this clip suggest about the target audience of BTN (Behind the News)? How does the visual information, such as graphics and animations, relate to this audience? Write a paragraph explaining what the producers might have to do differently to re-present this story on the NBN for an adult audience.

3 mins 53 secs

Source: ABC Behind the News | Learning area: English | Secondary: Years 7, 8


You might have heard about the NBN, or National Broadband Network. In this clip from October 2010, explore how a current affairs story is structured to explain current events and issues, such as the NBN, to its audience.


00:00:00:00NATHAN BAZLEY:You might have heard of something called the NBN which stands for the National Broadband Network. The government plans to spend 43 billion dollars building it but some people are asking if it's worth it. So what's so special about broadband anyway? Well, Kirsty logged on to crack the broadband code. And she found that not all internet connections are created equal.

...Read more >

00:00:25:12KIRSTY BENNETT, REPORTER:It's a sound you might not hear that much anymore. It's dial-up internet and it started getting popular in homes in the '80s. It was groundbreaking because for the first time you could dial into the internet from your home computer. But it was also slow, and you couldn't really do much more than send a bit of text around.00:00:46:07MOTHER:Get off the internet so I can use the phone!00:00:49:00KIRSTY BENNETT:It was OK to use back then because all we wanted to do was send an email or surf the net for a short time. People weren't downloading songs and things like Facebook and YouTube didn't even exist! But over the years, we began to ask a lot more from our computers and dial-up just couldn't handle it. That's when broadband stepped in to speed things up. Broadband is a high-speed internet connection that can carry voice, video and information to the computer all at once. It's kind of like a highway with lots of lanes that are used to download and upload data and it makes dial-up look so yesterday. The speeds you get on dial-up can't handle loads of data like you would need for streaming video. So the picture would look something like this. But broadband connections deliver information a lot faster so you would be able to watch me without any interruption, and even in high definition. To give you an idea, let's download a movie. If you were to do that on dial-up, it would take about a day! On a type of broadband called ADSL1, which runs at 1.5 megabits per second, it would take around 90 minutes. On a faster broadband called ADSL2+ it would take about 15 minutes. On a cable connection, it could take five minutes. But the government's planned broadband is expected to shake up these download times. It expects the new system will run at 100 megabits per second, so that movie would appear within a minute! All those speeds sound pretty zippy but compared to the rest of the world Australia is falling behind. Australia relies on an old communications network made out of copper wires. Some of it was laid over 100 years ago. ADSL broadband runs on this network. But some households, especially those in rural areas, can't get it because they're too far away from a telephone exchange where the main connection equipment is. So the government wants to put in fibre optic cables so the internet data can get all the way to your house. Fibre optic cables are made up of super thin strands of glass that carry light signals. It's quicker than a copper cable, can digest more data and the connection can travel much further down the line. It all sounds pretty rosy but there are some households that still won't be able to connect to the new system. So the government will offer them other options like satellite and wireless which can sometimes be slower. The rollout of the new network is planned to take the next eight years. So if this is what we can do with computers now, just imagine what we'll be able to do once Australia's internet gets more zoom.

For teachers

  • English: Year 7
  • Strand: Language
  • Substrand: Text structure and organisation
  • Content code: ACELA1531
  • English: Year 7
  • Strand: Language
  • Substrand: Text structure and organisation
  • Content code: ACELA1763
  • Content description: Understand that the coherence of more complex texts relies on devices that signal text structure and guide readers, for example overviews, initial and concluding paragraphs and topic sentences, indexes or site maps or breadcrumb trails for online texts
  • English: Year 8
  • Strand: Literacy
  • Substrand: Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
  • Content code: ACELY1733
  • Content description: Apply increasing knowledge of vocabulary, text structures and language features to understand the content of texts

About this resource


ABC Behind the News

Date first broadcast:

26 October 2010

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One faster: how fast is your internet?