John Linton
...and the future of a Telstra constructed NBN would destroy Australia.
Hopefully Krudd and SS (who I'm told are avid readers of the pearls of wisdom and insights these ramblings impart on a daily basis) will understand why this is the case from these pointers?
I have never paid any attention to Westnet's offers, and therefore prices, believing them to be some part of the Western Australian 'ethos' that is beyond my comprehension as someone who has only visited that part of the world for, at most, a few days at a time and never actually grasped why it is so different to "the Eastern States" (as NSW, Qld and VIC are so quaintly referred to) but establishes the fact that West Australians do consider that everywhere else in Australia is some homogenous 'mass' that is completely different to themselves).
However, as we consider the future of copper broadband in Australia and what a small company like Exetel needs to do in the short, medium and long term we have had to consider the effects of Telstra's road to Damascus type 'epiphany' of suddenly and enthusiastically making its ADSL2 network available to all and sundry having argued for so long that it is "totally against Telstr's interests" to do such a thing. For anyone silly enough to have read, let alone remembered, what I wrote some 15 months ago about why Telstra would do exactly that at around this time I won't be repeating that obvious 'strategy' - everyone either totally understands it now or me repeating it one more time won't make a difference.
So this is not a 'reprise' of the bleeding obvious and the old Heinlein assurance that "it's impossible to underestimate the stupidity of people who run Australian communications companies (sorry, that should be of course - "the power of human stupidity).
In considering the likely offerings to be made by ISPs over the coming six months it's impossible to ignore what Telstra will attempt to do in terms of re-pricing its ADSL1 services and the positioning of its ADSL2 services. What will, or will not, happen with ADSL1 is not yet clear but what Telstra would like to see the positioning of ADSL2 as in relation to the future pricing of the unlikely NBN is put in an interesting context by the pricing that WestNet (and PeopleTelecom before them) has put on ADSL2 services using Telstra's wholesale ADSL2 costings.
Obviously, I have no knowledge whatsoever of what the WestNet/TW contract costings are. What I can do is read pricing tables:
http://www.westnet.com.au/internet/broadband/
Now, despite the assurance that the two sets of ADSL2 plans "Pro" and "Reach" have "different pricing, features and conditions" - they actually only have different pricing (I can't see any difference in either the 'features' or the 'conditions').
What the PRICING shows is that Westnet used to offer pretty over priced ADSL2 (which I'm assuming was on Optus infrastructure or maybe some of the post takeover customers were on iiNet infrastructure - it isn't referred to on the web site which describes everything as being "Westnet").
Now Westnet (via Telstra ADSL2 infrastructure) offers even more ridiculously over priced ADSL2 services that vary from $A30.00 to $A40.00 more per month than the identical ADSL2 services they offer, concurrently, on Optus(?) ADSL2 infrastructure:
1 gb for $60.00 rather than $30.00 on non-Telstra
3 gb for $A70.00 rather than $A40.00 on non Telstra
7 gb for $A80.00 rather than $A50.00 on non Telstra
15 gb for $A100.00 rather than $A70.00 on non-Telstra
25 gb for $A130.00 rather than $A90.00 on non-Telstra.
If you don't want to "bundle" the ADSL2 service with a ludicrously high set of telephone call charges (PLUS flag falls of 37 cents FGS!!):
http://www.westnet.com.au/phone/home-phone-services/home-phone.aspx
the monthly ADSL2 charges are increased even higher by another $10.00 a month!!!! (Have these people never heard of VoIP???)
However the point is not to ridicule Westnet's pricing per se (it's self evidently ridiculous and needs no words of mine) but to understand what the new pricing is based on, presumably the differences in costs between what Telstra charge wholesale customers and what the other ADSL2 supplier to Westnet charges - and you are hard pressed to argue against that being anything other than DOUBLE the cost for the same speed and characteristics service.
Now iinet, in explaining its recent backflip - backflips seem to be a common characteristic of WA communications companies - (Eftel's reversal of "we are ongoing profitable" two weeks ago to "oops, we actually lost $A2.5 million" yesterday comes to mind) on its rationale for acquiring Westnet made the point that Telstra Wholesale had made it "an offer it couldn't refuse" to keep the Westnet business on the Telstra network rather than moving it to the iiNet network so......you would have to assume that.....well.... that the ADSL2 pricing was equally compelling....wouldn't you? It is unlikely to the point of non existent that iiNet/Westnet wouldn't have been conned in to buying at anything but TW's best 'deal'?
So Westnet/iinet are getting the best possible 'deal' from Telstra Wholesale that ipso facto manifests itself as paying twice as much for the same ADSL2 service? OK....as PTB once remarked about "suckers"......but if Krudd and SS (if he hasn't yet been promoted to Ambassador to the Holy See) are paying attention they would see something that Telstra is apparently doing. That is to make it appear that "the whole industry" accepts that it is REALLY expensive to supply high speed broadband to the 'bush' - just look at what the 'independent ISPs are charging for ADSL2!!!
Did anyone else happen to notice that Telstra's NBN "proposal" contained an identical estimate of $A30.00 a month for an NBN with 1 mbps connection as Wesnet's new ADSL2 Telstra price of $A30.00 but on "NBN" they ar proposing an included download of 200mb?
I'm sure that's just a coincidence. However, coincidence or not, it will be interesting to see what Internode prices it's ADSL2 over Telstra at compared to its ADSL2 over Optus and ADSL2 over'Internode'.
My reading is that if, somehow, Telstra gets to build an NBN then it will be priced at double what anyone else would offer prices to end users - and Westnet et alia will be used as Telstra's "good buddy" examples of why that is justified.
Hopefully Internode, WestNet and the others have acquired the mandatory long spoon prescribed for use in these situations.