Monday, December 15. 2008Telstra Has Already Moved To NBN Plan B...John Linton ...as their 'bluff' failed and they are excluded from the NBN RFP. (or perhaps they succeeded brilliantly in the latest move in the 'chess game'). Telstra had already appeared to have accepted that their bluff was failing and had moved to the Plan B as I posited here last Tuesday: NBN "Already Not Necessary For Rural Australia" According To Telstra... I doubt that I was the only one who had 'heard the whispers' out of Canberra that the two favoured bids were from Axia and Optus (though at a meeting with Optus I had last Wednesday they didn't seem to know) and that Telstra's bluff and bluster had gone too far for Krudd to 'stomach' in challenging his view that, irrespective of his total lack of knowledge on any subject, ONLY he knows what is the right thing to do. So - Telstra had already started to 'prove' that HSPA will deliver better than NBN to rural Australia before today's announcement and that their 900 plus ADSL2 exchanges are sufficient for the rest and, "hey - see you in court if you want any access to our pits and channels" will ensure that any time frame for any selected company building a fibre network will take a very, very long time. So a combination of HSPA in the country and roping in as many 'independent ISPS' as possible onto its ADSL2 network plus using the courts to delay any build as much as possible is the go - "An NBN is unnecessary" phase will now be entered plus a challenge to Telstra's exclusion in whatever court Telstra selects. So as I, and many other people said, some twelve months ago the NBN will continue to go nowhere fast while Telstra uses its dominance to make as much money as it can as quickly as it can - in its shareholder's interests of course. Nothing's changed so "nothing to see here - move along". It's also obvious that Telstra's lawyers probably played a major part in developing the strategy of submitting a 'bid' that was effectively an 'invitation to reject' and has based a subsequent strategy on the rejection of the bid. It should be equally obvious that the Federal AG and the Federal SG advised on the wording of the rejection in that knowledge. It will be interesting to see how far Telstra's shares fall today? The good thing, at least from Exetel's point of view is that Telstra will now increase its efforts to demonstrate that HSPA is the ONLY viable way of providing broadband to rural Australia and to many parts of 'country' Australia and will accelerate (if that isn't already the case) their ability to deliver 21 mbps+ services over HSPA which will push Optus and Vodafone to do the same. The more 'solid' HSPA becomes in delivering broadband to rural Australia the less 'need' there will be for running fibre to those areas - mind you - I made that point over a year ago and I wasn't the only one. If Exetel can't get the right 'deal' from Optus on HSPA over the coming months then we will have to consider just how we can base a future residential business on HSPA. If that proves not to be possible in Australia with our obviously currently small volumes then we will have to consider how we could use a UK HSPA operation to overcome that disadvantage. In the mean time we will try and get our 'rural' HSPA solution to 'market' in late January and will continue to push for better pricing that will allow for a greater, and faster, market place coverage.It seems to me, and it has for almost ten years, that there will almost never be a time that fibre to remote areas of Australia will ever be economical and that wireless was the only way to go (because the physics of satellite could never be overcome) - maybe this decade it will happen? So, on balance, Telstra's possible mis-reading of their position vis-a-vis the past and current government's 'flexibility' towards their black mail and just plain arrogant disregard for the real issues involved in providing 21st century communications in Australia in the realistic future simply, once again, underlines the MAJOR PROBLEM THAT JUST ISN'T GOING TO GO AWAY - which is of course - using hindsight - the decision to privatise Telstra in the current way it's been done will ensure that all Australians will never get the communications network that is needed. The way it stands at the moment is that a commercial company, in the interests of several hundred thousand shareholders (probably more correctly a handful of short term visiting opportunity seekers and their Australian sycophants) constantly wages war on 20 million other Australians pushing the cost of sub-standard communications to the highest possible levels. It is simply is, and always has been, an untenable situation. Scipio the elder put it succinctly some 2,200 years go when pointing out (about a similarly ongoing intransigent problem) that, no matter how anyone tried to twist and turn, there was only one solution. Telstra Delenda Est Trackbacks
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Telstra Delenda Est
And Sol et al throw themselves upon the sacrificial fire Comment (1)
Telstra Delenda Est
I'd like to warm myself by that.. Comment (1)
Can someone remind me, what was it about the OPEL deal that the Labor Government said was not approriate, and allowed them to cancel the contract.
I thought that OPEL was suggesting that they would provide Broadband to the bush via a wireless solution....... If I am correct it seems that wemay be going around in circles... Comment (1)
Telstra objected and the Labor government cancelled the contract.
The only quick way, and may be the only way, to provide broadband to rural Australia is via HSPA or some equivalent. Comments (2)
Unless I'm mistaken (quite possible), the OPEL plan was to provide wireless services using WiMAX, which is nowhere near as good as HSPA.
Peresonally, I don't think it would have measured up the what was needed. Comment (1)
OPEL failed its own test of deliverability which is why their contract was cancelled!!!
Bloggers, please check facts & stop making accusations without the appropriate basis for doing so!!! I desperately want to see a good fast reliable & affordable NBN but not on the misconception that any form of high capacity high speed wireless system is as good or better than optic fibre as this defies the laws of physics!!! The more users that are sharing a radio bandwith at any 1 time the slower the service becomes, and susceptible to many environmental conditions. Comment (1)
It did not take long for Telstra to say they had been excluded from the tender on a minor technicality, did it?
Now where did I suggest that would happen? (without being a little cynical). ... their claim for costs won't be far away now. H. Comment (1)
What is to stop Telstra wholesaling ADSL2 to everyone at ADSL1 prices and cutting their prices for ADSL2 access as well?
What is to stop Telstra from upping speed and lowering cost of HSPA broadband everywhere? Finally they can expand their cable network. They have shown they can out-market anyone. That would kill the NBN's business plan without resorting to litigation.. I have ADSL2 with Exetel at 14mbit speed and I don't care if the NBN is built or not. I have what I need for the foreseeable future and it's great. Comment (1)
Telstra could, and should cut it's ludicrously high ADSL1 prices and it often does - when it makes 'special limited' offers to other ISP's customers.
Telstra can beat any competitor price any time it chooses and it frequently chooses to do that on a selective basis. It can drive every competitor out of business any time it chose to do that and it often chooses to do that. But to offer properly priced services it would also have to cut 70% of its non engineering personnel and then cut the remuneration of the rest by a similar or larger percentage. It's called structural separation moving forward. Today it's just "marketing". Comments (2)
I've just been out west doing some harvesting(100km away from the main exchange/town/3g tower). While telstra wireless broadband(no investments from optus or vodafone to be seen) is very expensive, it is giving satellite a run for its money. The main problem i had was the UPS was broken and a brown outs every 2 hours meant lots of restarts(QLD Labor FTW). Rural users aren't the same customers as city people. They don't live inside. The telstra 1GB plan would suit many rural customers. Farmers are prepared to spend 3 or 400 dollars on each UHF unit + aerials per machine/residence. Just imagine how much they would spend on broadband if it had any real use to them other than paying workers wages, checking weather and maybe some emails a bit quicker. A price decrease would always be welcomed. That being said progress should not be halted, i just feel it is important that people understand the requirements of rural Australia instead of using them as an excuse to upgrade the cities(money). While they are users too on the whole their requirements differ significantly. They get screwed on every issue, so why should broadband be any different. If people cared about the bush they would not vote in a fucking labor government. Then again if anyone cared Telstra would not be privatised.
If anyone of use is reading this. Most cotton farmers actually have proper towers setup on their properties to receive data from ground probes and auto farm/green star. An inexpensive network would probably appeal to these people if they had something to gain from it(cheaper internet, better wireless communication). Just an interesting thought i had while i was out there. Comment (1)
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