Thursday, February 7. 2008As Predicted - Labor Starts To Repay Telstra For Election SupportJohn Linton ....and with indecent and totally cynical haste... So, how surprising: http://www.itwire.com/content/view/16490/1103/ "Suddenly - Telstra finds itself able to deliver ADSL2 in another 900 exchanges" after Mr Trujillo goes to Canberra to pick up his 'get out of gaol free' card from the 'Prime Minister' in person. I guess that partially explains the loss of so many Exetel ADSL1 customers to Telstra BigPond over the past 2 - 3 months - they were getting a 'trial offer' of free and immediate/no down time 'churn' from Exetel's (and presumably other ISP's) ADSL1 services to BigPond's ADSL2 services at 'promotional rates'. As I stated (several times prior to the election much to the ire of those Labor voters who read my comments) a Labor 'government' would make it very easy for Telstra to get whatever it wanted and it's taken a blink of an eye for Rudd to start paying off Telstra for their vehement and tens of millions of dollars of election support in Telstra's anti Helen Coonan/Coalition campaigning. True to their USA backgrounds - the 'new' Telstra senior management know its easier to buy politicians than to operate with annoying regulation. Happy now all you communications users who voted Labor? Well done - perfectly thought through decision on your part. Makes you look back with almost affection to the time that Helen Coonan put up some token resistance to letting Telstra's US senior (temporary) managers progressively tear up the Australian Telecommunications Act. You can kiss goodbye to the other Labor smoke and mirrors illusion that the $A8.0 billion for Rudd's crazy FTTN money is going anywhere but straight to Telstra to ensure that it remains as hard as ever, will probably get more difficult, to reduce the Telstra monopolistic control of pricing for basic communication services in Australia. Well that bit of reading has got the day off to a really good start as I try to get a day's work done in the few hours available to me before getting on a plane for 9 hours with no communications to the local situation in Australia - a small mercy. Ignoring what some people may see as my prejudice and paranoia (and yes, Telstra and Labour really are out to 'get' competitors to Telstra) it becomes even more obvious that any thoughts of investing in DSLAMs/MSANs or 'add ons' to the currrent or any other wire line network in Australia for a small company like Exetel is so fraught with risk it can't be considered. Again, I've been expressing these views ever since those twinks got elected but I've retained some hope that my views of just how stupid Rudd and co are wouldn't turn out as negatively as I had thought possible. Any remaining illusion in that direction has been snuffed out. Those twinks really are a dumb as their pre-election promises made them appear and they are just as easily purchased as has just been proven. Oh well - thank goodness they are devoting so much time to apologising to God knows who for God knows what on behalf of someone or other and reaping whatever that financial whirlwind then engulfs them. Maybe I will just tick the immigration statement at the airport this morning "Australian resident leaving permanently" rather than watching as those morons destroy a perfectly good country in a few inept months. Earlier this morning I have formally written to the three companies that we were dealing with to buy several million dollars worth of infrastructure apologising for wasting so much of their time but saying we coud no longer consider risking so much money given the clear indications of the accommodations the new 'government' as now and would continue to give to Telstra. For Exetel, and perhaps for other communications companies in Australia, 2008 is now, very definitely, looking like being even harder than my most pessimistic estimates. I think the Commander lay offs and the Mitsubishi plant closure are indicative of the general outlook for 2008 and it will take some very bloody minded strength of purpose and incredibly hard work to make any progress until there is a change of government - not something to look forward to. For those kind people who regularly read my meandering daily rants - I apologise in advance that I may not have the facilities to write regularly over the coming ten days but I'll do my best. Trackbacks
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The only saving grace is that Telstra's ADSL2+ plans are way more expensive than anyone else's. However I expect that to change 2.5 seconds after the 900 exchanges have had their DSLAM software configurations updated.
3G/4G based services are going to become an even more important field of growth for you now it seems. Comments (3)
I've been tryig to reduce the amount of business we do with Telstra for three years.
After a lot of isses we've reduced it to about 40% from over 80%. Comments (2)
I must admit that is something that I advocate to all my ISP associates. But my position in the industry does bias that somewhat.
However each chunk of revenue that you and other ISPs take away from Telstra and give to other carriers (PIPE, Optus, NTT, Verizon, etc) strengthens the industry as a whole. Comments (3)
JL> I have formally written to the three companies that we were dealing with to buy several million dollars worth of infrastructure ... no longer consider risking so much money.
Hopefully only a short term setback. However I have previously lobbied that a service like this http://meraki.com/oursolution/editions/carrier/ would have a risk profile better suited to Exetels scale, be more independent of Government policy/regulation, independent of any particular carrier and be unique in the Australian market. Regards C Bumkin Comment (1)
Unfortunately I don't believe that HSDPA is the answer either; it is a great fillup and for use in good signal locations, but it is too easy for the signal to drop out particularly if you are on the move -- I've had dropouts in locations that should have full and proper coverage as well.
I posted on the WP news story about the Conroy letter (and my response to him). Basically I think that Telstra must wholesale the ADSL2+ product and if that doesn't occur then the ACCC are not doing their job properly. Perhaps Mr. Samuel is at an exchange to offers no ADSL2+ from any other provider... btw the letter from Mr. Conroy has an email address on the page; I used that to send him my letter. Kind Regards AndrewM Comment (1)
It isn't the total solution but it does work for some situations. Low volume users who already have moved their voice traffic over to a mobile is a good example.
Not to mention people who move regularly, such as share householders. Comments (3)
I think you have swallowed the Telstra line ...see:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Telstra-loses-game-of-chicken-on-ADSL2-rollout/0,130061791,339285693,00.htm for a more balanced view which pretty clearly shows that absolutely nothing has changed - not the (current or previous) Government's policy and not the ACCC's policy - apart, that is, from Telstra's policy Also, but my vote at the last election was not cast with any thought of broadband in mind. There were more important issues (for me anyway). Comment (1)
John,
I've read now several of your comments regarding the apology to the stolen generations and it is clear that you are not sure what it is or what it achieves. I'd suggest getting a hold of the "Bringing them home" report that started this whole thing. It might make a bit more sense then. If that's a bit too much reading then try http://www.getup.org.au/files/campaigns/The%20Apology%20Mythbusters.pdf I realise that the politics and agenda of GetUp don't align with your personal viewpoint but that document will at least present you with the most commonly raised issues with the apology. But as I said, nothing is more enlightening then reading the initial report that started it all - http://www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/index.html Thanks Michael. Comment (1)
I have no interest in what well meaning people did in some past time that may have had results that were very different to those planned.
I wasn't in this country at those times and neither were the overwhelming majority of people currently living here. It has no relevance and absolutely no meaning to me for some twink in the ACT to make a speech of some completely meaningless and pointless words swiftly followed by a dramatic increase in the endless river of money spent every second of ever day on some tiny fraction of the Australian poulation - of which I also have no concern about - tax money has always been pointlessly wasted on one thing or another - wasting it on any particular stupidity is not going to make any difference. However my points have only been related to the stupidity of wasting time grand standing some meaningles activity when the country is going down the drain. Comments (2)
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