Thursday, May 8. 2008$A4.7 Billion Would Provide Fast Broadband To Every Australian 'Tomorrow'.....John Linton ....and would eliminate the Telstra monopoly for ever. I mentioned that while I was in Sri Lanka last week I was impressed by the fact that there were three mobile networks offering HSPA services at speeds of up to 7.2 mbps x 1.1 mbps at lower costs than were currently available in Australia - I was particularly impressed by the 1 cent per megabyte excess charges that compared to Australian mobile carrier's offerings of around 15 cents per megabyte. Since returning to Australia we have decided to trial one of these services (there are three to choose from including the one from Sri Lanka Telecom - the 'local' equivalent of Telstra). If this test is successful we will replace the current ADSL services we use for the four 'work from home' support engineers in Colombo and use the faster, and cheaper, HSPA services. We will also order the same services for the new central office in Colombo as a back up to the main Ethernet links. Telstra already offers HSPA to a large part of Australia and I see from this article: http://www.itwire.com/content/view/18089/127/ that Optus is going to extend its HSPA network to 98% of Australia and will increase speeds to 7.2 mbps and then to whatever the technology can sensibly deliver (certainly much faster than the 12 mbps stipulated in the current national broadband tender fiasco). I realise I have made this point before (that HSPA is a far more sensible approach to true competition in the country wide Australian broadband marketplaces) but I continue to fail to understand why the current 'government' is so Hell bent on restoring Telstra's monopoly by giving it $A4.7 billion to take five years to build a slower network than already exists from three major carriers. Once built it will almost certainly never be kept upgraded by Telstra and will become obsolete before it's completed. There are approximately 4.7 million ADSL users in Australia at the moment and assuming that the true end need is to provide a fast broadband connection to every Australian household there would be around 9.4 million households (probably about right and it keeps the math easy). A usable 5 gb of traffic now costs around $A50 per month with a zero activation fee and the purchase of an HSPA device (in bulk the carriers would be happy to sell it for $A80.00 rather than 'giving it away' on a two year contract). So my proposal to Crazy Kevin and Stupid Stephen is this: 1) Withdraw the current 'tender' immediately 2) Offer 9.4 million households in Australia (via the carriers that meet the criteria): a) A one off payment of $A100 to pay for an HSPA 'modem' b) A subsidy of $15.00 a month to pay for an HSPA service c) Make the accounting and actual payment direct to the mobile carriers d) Have the mobile carriers display the credits on the end user's monthly bill There you go - every Australian has 7.2 mbps broadband - quickly moving to 20 mbps+ 'immediately' without any tender and three major carriers in Australia get their share of the government's $A4.7 billion to ensure they extend their networks and upgrade the speed to above 12 mbps as a condition of participating. It also costs the 'government the same $A4.7 billion to subsidise each Australian household for two years after which the massive take up in HSPA will have driven the monthly price down so that further subsidy would be unnecessary. Plus it gives three mobile carriers an extra 3,000,000 users to make deployment of additional capacities a piece of cake. AND THE END USERS GET IT FAR CHEAPER THAN TELSTRA HAS SAID IT WILL HAVE TO BE PRICED AT - $A35.00 per month with no activation charge. Someone should elect me prime minister - I'd clearly do a much better job because I have a sensible knowledge of reality and technology and no vested interest. Who loses from such a scheme? No-one of any importance. Who gains from such a scheme? Every Australian and the three (perhaps four) mobile carriers who have invested over $A40 billion into building true Australia wide voice and data networks in Australia. Better than that - there would be no need for the ACCC to be constantly involved controlling a rapacious privately owned monopoly that would make everything in Australia much more expensive and would never have any reason to introduce new and better technology. Will it happen? No. Why? Make your own mind up. (you could try starting with - "because the Labor 'government'.....") Trackbacks
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A very amusing presentation of a valid point.
+ 1 vote. Comment (1)
John,
You've probably got a slightly better chance of catching "crazy Kevin and stupid Stephens" ear than me. So go contact them... Seriously! Comment (1)
John you made a perfect case for leaving Telstra alone to do what it wants. All the activism by the ACCC is misguided because there are completely usable alternatives to Telstra’s “last mile” cables.
The monopoly arguments against Telstra are no longer valid in my opinion. Mobiles are a perfect alternative to landlines and wireless is a valid alternative to ADSL for everyone except the P2P crowd. So what do you make of all the activism by some of the larger smaller ISP’s like Internode and iiNet who constantly demand more concessions from Telstra? Surely any reasonable person would regard them as completely self-serving. They are even demanding compensation for their DSLAM rollouts if the new fibre networks get built. How greedy can they get? Apparently the same as Telstra. Comment (1)
Deregulation, via the Telecommunications Act, worked well for mobile because, apart from an earlier start, Telstra held no control or any other advantage.
Wire line services had to be 'deregulated' and controlled because there was no way any other company could compete with a roll out (sold to the Telstra investors) that had taken 100 years and 100 billion of tax payer money. My point, simplistic though it might be, was that NO MORE tax payer money should be 'gifted' to re-entrenching the wire line monopoly - as it would be better, in every respect, to assist the better establishment of data over mobile which has no 'natural' monopoly in this country. Forcing a practiced and wealthy litigious entity like Telstra to comply with every different interpretation of the TA is a very wasteful scenario. having sid that never forget that Telstra, in the whole of its existence is a natural price gouger and an incredible sloth when it comes to implementing new technology and has never been known to offer lower pricing except by true competition and 'legislation'. Long before Telstra reluctantly agreed to provide ADSL, Steve and I were providing 2mbps x 2 mbps over Telstra copper lines for $A150.00 a month in 1997 when Telstra was charging $A3,000 a month for the same service over the same lines. The problem with all monopolies is they charge far too much and delay 'new technology' as long as possible. Comments (5)
Someone should elect me prime minister
- Nothing personal - but - "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" I'd rather see you as the Telecomunications Minister. You should voice your opinions to those in power , you are correct and the worst they could do is say no , but at least you would have tried. Comment (1)
Have we actually even got enough spectrum in built up areas to use this?
People keep touting wireless as the cure however and that everyone can achieve XYZ bandwidth however they can never generally guarenty a minimum bandwidth or tell us what the total bandwidth pool is for a single segement. Comment (1)
I don't know.
Every other country that implements it seems to cope. Three different networks on three different 'spectra' should be sufficient to provide access in 'regional' areas which is the main point of the 'tender'. (no-one needs a new 12 mbps network in the capital cities). Comments (5)
[quote]no-one needs a new 12 mbps network in the capital cities[/quote]
You do if you have no acess to the Telstra or Optus cables, and you are more than 4.5-5km from a telephone exchange which makes ADSL/ADSL2 a non-viable option. There are many non-remote parts of our metro areas who are in this situation. Comment (1)
TRue - but only for a limited percentage of people for whom an HSPA solution will be fine.
I was really referring to the need for billions of dollarrs to be spent in capital cities to provide a 'whole new network'. Comments (5)
How fast would the HSPA network crawl to once 4.9m or 9.4m connections are added?
How much will the network providers ask for from the govt to upgrade their backhauls once 9.4m people have a mobile network connection about the same as my GSM GPRS phone? Maybe not, I don't know how scalable these are? Comment (1)
Not being a senior mobile network engineer - I wouldn't know.
It hasn't stopped two major US telco's investing in huge wimax solutions though. Comments (5)
Yes, WiMAX and not HSDPA would be the ideal way to go.
The technologies differ. HSDPA is a mobile network with data packet access added (it's essentially a phone network). WiMAX is a data network. It's design isn't for voice services, but data. If your building a data network, then the right product to use would be a data product. WiMAX fits the job here nicely. It's unfortunate we have screwballs in government who close down good ideas such as the OPEL network, which could have seen a long term, viable service rolled out to regional areas for a very cheap cost to the taxpayer. All is certainly not lost though, there's a reason Optus bought spectrum from Austar. Wireless does seem like the future, it's just Australia continually stays behind the forefront of technology, we seem to follow the lead of other nations, despite our very unique terrain and population density, we look at products developped for very different scenarios and ... use those. Comment (1)
Nice idea John. I hope it catches the attention of the decision makers.
Australia has invested too much in recent years on technology which was either cut short for political reasons or didn’t live up to its reputation. I’m referring to: AMPS – Scrapped to encourage competition CDMA – Introduced to replace AMPS HFC – Deployed ferociously by both Optus & Telstra in the mid 90s. Obviously still in use and Telstra recently performed some upgrades, but no longer being expanded. There may well be others. My fear is that FTTN (with no easy upgrade path to FTTH) will suffer the same fate. FTTN is an interim technology with an enormous start up cost. You’re absolutely correct in proposing that we leverage existing infrastructure to satisfy demand. (A happy and satisfied customer since March ’04. Thank you!!) Comment (1)
Thank you for your initial trust and then your support over such a long time.
I always get a good feeling when I see the monthly usage report and see so many of the first 500 people who signed up with Exetel are still customers. Comments (5)
You should send some of your ideas to MP's.
Comment (1)
Personally I think the way to go for broadband should be FTTN (FTTH is way to expensive and not going to be feasible for quite some time) for metro and major regional centres, with WiMax or HSDPA for the rural areas. The closer you bring the fibre cable to your home the quicker the internet connection you are going to get (providing there is adequate backhail,etc...). Once time for FTTH comes out FTTN will mean that they have the central points to run the fibre cables from the homes to. Besides the amount of money invovled in bring a fibre cable into each and every home (and the optical receiver and transmitters) would be enormous so I really dont think we will be seeing it for over a decade atleast....
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