John Linton Time continues to pass by and there is no end in sight, at least as far as I can determine, as to when or still more probably if, Exetel will be able to recommence providing wire line based broadband services to Tasmanian users. I was cheered to read that the Tasmanian government had finally reached an agreement to provide access to the cableĀ they spent so much time and money putting in place but the actual time frame for a small company like Exetel getting a working service operational using "Bass Link" is still in the unknown future - best guess somewhere this side of mid 2009.
As it seems likely that by mid 2009 Exetel would still not be able to offer ADSL2 services in Tasmania except for Hobart and, possibly, Launceston I'm beginning to wonder whether it remains worth pursuing a wire line broadband solution in Tasmania at all. It seems possible to me that HSPA from Optus may well have developed to be able to deliver whatever the net result a 7.2 mbps HSPA service can sustain on an individual user basis so, for many Tasmanian users HSPA may well be able to provide a suitable speed for the vast majority of users. Should Optus' HSPA network then continue to the 21 mbps level it should be capable of delivering by early 2010 then even the arguments for ADSL2 in Tasmania (at least provided by Exetel) are not very compelling.
The indicative pricing for IP from Hobart to Melbourne using Bass Link is far lower than has previously been available to Exetel but even at those possible greatly reduced costs the price we are being asked to pay is 4 times higher than we currently pay in all other Australian States and Territories and, to put that in perspective, is almost double what we pay for IP connectivity from Sydney to the West Coast of the USA. So the costs of connecting a Tasmanian user to the internet are still incredibly more expensive than connecting any other Australian user (including those in the Northern Territory, or the outer limits Northern Western Australia and far North Queensland).
While I would expect the initial 'asking prices' for Bass Link transit to be 'negotiable', I somehow doubt that whatever 'final' price is eventually offered will make it possible for Exetel to offer realistically priced residential services in Tasmania - or, if that sounds too negative let me amend that comment to "prices as realistic as we are able to offer in all other parts of Australia". This is very disappointing to me personally and I think it's quite probably going to be even more disappointing to Tasmanian internet users - of any ISP's services.
For once the high cost of communications can't be blamed on Telstra - at least not in any 'direct' way. As the Tasmanian Government should have been able to control the price of this essential service to its constituents only the Tasmanian Government should be held accountable for what it charges for this key service and it appears to have decided that it should punish all Tasmanians by not ensuring that they are able to use the same services as all other Australians at the same prices. Not having any knowledge of how this clearly State funded initiative has been allowed to degenerate from 'solving' the bandwidth cost issues to the current situation I can't make any further comment on my personal, on behalf of Exetel's current ADSL customers, disappointment and feeling of helplessness.
As I don't know any of the facts I'm not in a position to really comment further. However, if we don't achieve a reasonable outcome we will ask some very straight questions of the current Tasmanian government in terms of:
a) What their objectives were in their initial funding of the link?
b) Why a project designed to give Tasmanians 'equality of access' to the Internet has failed so miserably in achieving that objective?
My quick calculations indicate that we would need to put in place completely different pricing for ADSL1 services in Tasmania to those offered everywhere else in Australia. We would need to charge something like this:
512/128 ADSL1 connection for $30.00 per month
1500/256 ADSL1 connection for $37.50 per month
8192/384 ADSL1 connection for $57.50 per month
plus $2.25 per gb downloaded in the 12 midday to 12 midnight period and 50 cents per gb downloaded in the 12 midnight to 12 midday period
I have no 'final numbers' to actually put anything firmly in place but on current indications it would be pretty much along those lines.
At those prices a low download user would be much better off using HSPA (where it's available in Tasmania) which raises some interesting questions about how Optus is handling back haul out of Tasmania on its current mobile network (or any of the other mobile carriers for that matter).
I guess this means we have a great deal of 'hard talking' to do before we can make a decision on whether we can continue to offer wire line based broadband services in Tasmania - it makes you realise what a good deal Telstra offers in Tasmania. I suppose it also makes you wonder why ........ but that would be churlish.