Wednesday, August 11. 2010Plus Ca Change - Plus Ca Meme ChoseJohn Linton Life seems to be continuing to be getting more complicated and time demands imposed by 'out of left field' incidents, events and just plain threats seem to be increasing. I can usually deal with my daily comms industry 'reading, over night email and other start of day business tasks in a little over an hour before writing this blog over a second cup of tea or coffee but since I returned from the annual break that time has become closer to two hours - sometimes more than that. Perhaps it's just my ongoing inability to understand what is happening around Australia? I read the reports on the coalition's alternative to Labor's mythical 'NBN2' yesterday and again early this morning and I was struck by the arrant stupidity of the Australian communications media and the even greater stupidity of those members of the Australian electorate who managed to get their inane comments in to print. I have no intention of wasting your time reading a rehash of my statements over the past almost three years since Krudd announced 'his' national broadband policy in late 2007 (the one that would deliver fast broadband to 99% of Australia's population with the first houses turned on by December 2008 for a total cost of some $A5 billion. (funnily enough I didn't see any comments about that). What I did read were comments by 'experts' (mainly Australian communication media children) that started from the assumption that Krudd's 'NBN2' was somehow a rational reality and the coalition were insane to propose that it wasn't. Since when did a flagrant political face saving farce become "a reality"? Never mind - Australian's (like Americans and Brits) get the governments they deserve and the socialistic cargo cult mentalities prevalent in such a large percentage of those people are the preferred life style belief of the stupid and the lazy. In the mean time we have to run a business in today's world and try to deal with the constant uncertainty that engenders. Telstra's recent 'updates' to its ADSL2 plans and its $A200 or so 'welcome back' incentives have shaken up the market, as was obviously intended, and the first reactions are beginning to be seen. It is going to be really interesting to see how much market share Telstra is able to 'buy back' over the balance of calendar 2010 and just how much damage that does to the larger ISPs - I think the damage to smaller ISPs, particularly in country/regional areas of Australia will be immense (I think the damage to Exetel will be pretty hard to deal with too by the way but at least we knew it was coming and made what preparations we could). It isn't hard to work out who the biggest loser will be from the current Telstra initiatives (iinet) but it will be interesting to see which other companies are affected and by how much. Naturally, we only have a passing and mild interest in how other companies prosper or don't prosper as it takes all of the time we have available to deal with our own problems....and there are more of those these days than at any time in the past; or so it seems. Sometime over the next day or so we need to finalise what we will do in terms of offering ADSL2 services via the Telstra ADSL2 network. While we have pretty much established the limits of what is possible we were hoping to see what other ISPs were going to do before finalising the 'line up'. Looking at the information currently available there will be a mixture of competitive 're-adjustments' even from the people who publicly stated that they wouldn't "sell at below cost" because of "Telstra's anti-competitive actions". So much for pomp and circumstance - it obviously hasn't taken long for churn aways to change that pretty silly statement. We also need to provide new wireless broadband plans before the end of August and that is now becoming more interesting than any time in the past. While everyone (within the industry) I talk with remains adamant that "wireless will never replace ADSL/fibre) I think that adamancy is about to be tested for the first time. Optus recent wireless plans address have become much closer to what 50% of current ADSL users are prepared to pay for an internet connection and the network infrastructures are getting a little closer to being able to sustain the performance required in a lot more places than even a year ago. The hardware required is a fraction of the price it was and most of it can be bought on places like E Bay for a big discount off even the carrier's discounted new price. 50% of Exetel's customers use less than 5 gb per month (most of those use less than 3 gb per month) and the price/speed/sustainability equation continues to become more compelling for that large section of our customer base. Only price has been the barrier and that may become less of an issue over the coming months. It seems to me that between now and Christmas the internet marketplace in Australia will change more than it has done since 'broadband' emerged and killed the dial up market place within two years. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry
No Trackbacks
Comments
Display comments as
(Linear | Threaded)
You have over the last three years commented on the NBN proposal of Krudd.
I take it from your none comment on the "I'm no Bill Gates" Abbott proposal that you are happy with what they are proposing. Given that the liberals seem to be reinventing Howards wiMAX solution with backhaul and a continuation of Telstra's monopoly on ADSL how does this fit with your view of where the communications industry should be heading ? Comments (2)
1) No government should ever be involved in commercial endeavours other than as a facilitator.
2) No government should commit to spending very large amounts of money on technologies it neither understands nor has bothered to have costed by people who might understand them. 3) The 'NBN1' was a political gimmick that had no future from the time it was 'promised' and could be regarded as one more election promise stupidity that would never see the light of day. 4) The 'NBN2' was announced to cover up the broken promise of the NBN1' and has such far reaching implications it is already destroying the Australian communications industry without providing any replacement. 5) Don't bring up "Howard" - he was 'elected out of office' three years ago. 6) What the coalition is saying is that government should act as a facilitator and leave the commercial deliverers to sort out the details. Unless you believe in Socialism to the point of insanity you should realise that government should never be involved in commercial enterprise. Comment (1)
John I am no Socialist however I have voted Green in Tasmania to stop the stupidity of the State Governments both liberal and Labour involvement in a dead technology ie cutting down wilderness forests.
As for commercial endeavors for as far as I can remember we need infrastructure to support the whole country not just those that sit in Melbourne and Sydney that are commercially viable for private enterprise to fund and build. The liberals are committing $2B for New Fixed Wireless. They are also funding Satellite services building a new National Fibre Optic network to deliver backhaul. So I assume the government will own/control this infrastructure So we have a choice of fibre owned by the government or wireless and Sattelite and Fibre owned by the governement. So are you saying the both Liberal and labour should scrape their plans and leave it solely up to the commercial world. Comments (2)
1) See 1) and 2) previously.
2)It is disingenuous to state that i have made any comment about "Sydney and Melbourne". 3) The ability for "country children" (of whatever age) to play on line games or watch pirated video is not something that any government should spend tax payer money on. 4) A government that plans to waste $A6 billion is preferable to one that plans to waste $A43 billion and destroy the current infrastructure in attempting to do that. 4) I haven't voted for a coalition candidate for as long as I can remember - while it doesn't make any difference who I vote for in the electorate I live in I have seldom voted for any candidate - I judge them on the merits of their views - I seldom find any. 5) The choice isn't between fibre owned by the government and fibre owned by an alternative government. There is no choice because government should only facilitate a sensible commercial strategy on strictly commercial terms. I really don't have anything further to add. Comment (1)
NBN Co is a trading company [1] in it's own right, it has investment from Government and other sources and will have further investment.
Monies spend on NBN2 by the government will be re-paid as per the plan; this is an investment which builds infrastructure that is badly needed. The eventual sale of NBN Co will be done, the project is too big for most if not all Telcos today, probably too big for Telstra, although they could've made it happen if they wanted. NBN1 was dumped for a number of reasons, one being that it wasn't the "right" solution to the problem. The biggest risk as far as I can see of NBN2 is that Telstra may, down the track, stump up the leasing costs of the ducts too much. However, I've heard 2nd hand news that the deal is fair and reasonable and that won't happen for at least a significant period of time, so that risk is not as great. No wireless solution is likely to get anywhere near as good as what fibre can offer in fixed locations. Even with the advances in network coverage, HSPA is still pretty much a lemon compared to fixed wire for anyone needing reliable speeds and low latency. [1] http://www2.search.asic.gov.au/cgi-bin/gns030c?acn=136_533_741&juris=9&hdtext=ACN&srchsrc=1 Comment (1)
|
Calendar
QuicksearchArchivesCategoriesBlog AdministrationExternal PHP Application |