John Linton
As the time gets closer for the Labour government twinks to front up to their adamantly expressed determination to fund the ($A4.7 billion) roll out of a new fibre network to deliver fast broadband (whatever they think that is) it seems, at least to me, that such a venture (which was never going to be possible or necessary in the first place) using fibre technology which is already in its 'sunset' phase in terms of providing data to dispersed residential users and a new 'investment' in it at this late stage would be very unwise particularly for a country like Australia.
I assume Senator Conroy can and does read about the technologies his cabinet position requires him to do, or at least some of his 'advisors' can/do, so they would have stumbled across the multiplicity of reports on the ongoing speed enhancements of 3G/4G services which, while still fairly limited today, continue to get faster every few months and are now stated as reaching the LTE 'standards' ahead of the scheduled time frames. Presumably articles such as:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15859/127/
and the omnipresent updates in virtually every European communications publication (print or online) on similar developments in Europe, Japan and Eastern Asia have come to Senator Conroy's attention together with the added, massive financial windfall, bonus of being able to sell new swathes of 'spectrum' to mobile companies?
Given that there are 4 mobile carriers firmly entrenched in Australia and they actually do provide real competitive pressures to Telstra (without having Telstra's 'dead hand' being able to control any 'wholesale' mechanism/trench rental) it surely would have occurred even to the apparently brain dead apparatchiks who 'advise' the Labour policies on telecommunications that it would be infinitely better to use the flexibility and absolutely 'Telstra Free' concepts of mobile tower delivery of fast broadband than to simply continuing to bankroll the Telstra wire line monopolies.
The use of 2.6GHz spectrum which can be licensed by the Federal government not only to the current four major providers but also to any number of regional/small independent providers (with or without Federal government 'assistance') means that no-one is dependent, in any way, on Telstra and true competition is guaranteed as well as regional authorities (such as councils) being able to ensure they can provide broadband to their ratepayers if the mobile companies don't do it for them.
With Nokia/Siemens stating that they expect to be able to deliver on the LTE standard within the next 2 years there is almost no reason that I can see why anyone would start a tender process in the middle of 2008 to eventually deliver "at least speeds of 12 mbps" to a limited number of locations by 2011 when you can have 30 mbps almost everywhere (and 100 mbps in most capital cities) where there is mobile reception today?
Only the Labour party and their best buddy Telstra who contributed so much money and rhetoric to getting Labour elected last December?
To me - the concept of delivering data via the Telstra monopoly makes as much sense as Conroy's other recently announced stupidity - "banning pornography via access lists" - both show total ignorance of a very easy to understand (most Australian 15 year olds seem to understand internet better than Conroy and his 'advisors') and commonly used set of technologies.
It will be interesting to see what happens in Germany and the rest of Europe in the coming months as Internet-HSPA morphs in to LTE in an increasing number of 'live test' locations and whether or not Senator Conroy can learn to spell IP before he issues some sort of pointless fibre network tender designed to be won by Telstra.
What would be best for Australian end users (and the commercial communications companies)?
A new technology that can be deployed anywhere that isn't dependent on any other commercial entity and is subject to true commercial competition and is relatively low cost to add on to established networks?
OR
Giving Telstra $A4.7 (or would that actually turn out to be $A8 billion?) to continue to over charge for a slower than required service that is locked away from any competition because it contributed to funding the Labour party's recent election win?
Really tough call.