John Linton ....'little people' always get trampled by big people in any dispute.
One of the enduring naiveties of media reporting on communications services in Australia is the media commentator's almost childish lack of understanding about how large commercial companies and government institutions operate and the calibre and ethics of the personnel employed within such organisations. It may be an exaggeration to say that to succeed in such organisations a person needs to have had surgery to remove any aspect of fair dealing but it seems to help career progression in many large organisations I have dealt with and been employed by over the years. So I found this:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/258715,opinion-the-nbn-must-end-the-telco-blame-game.aspx
as a quintessential example of my view that media commentators are naive to a point that makes their views on what is a quasi monopolistic industry that involves government regulation completely irrelevent.
I am not saying that the communications industry in Australia is alone among Australian industries in having these characteristics but it is one of the few that, over time, have attracted the very worst examples of naked greed and uncaring attitudes that go beyond whatever you regard as the next most predatory group of companies and regulators. So the 'NBN2' is going to, somehow against all logic and previous experience, be somehow better than all other communications suppliers in the history of federation? And you believe that because.....well there is absolutely nothing to suggest that a new monopoly will act any differently to any other monopoly that has existed for the past 4,000 years for the simple reason that monopolies have no reason other than to act in the best interests of the people they employ (the people they employ make all the decisions with no counter balance of a competitor) - which is never in the best interests of the people they 'serve'.
The cited article took up the "you must agree never to blame us for anything we do wrong" clause of the 'draft' 'NBN2' wholesale supply contract. That single, ludicrous, clause sums up a monopolist's attitude to everything and foreshadows the nature of the future services they intend to supply - before any infrastructure has been put in place. It obviously means that the 'NBN2' has no intention, from the very start, of actually delivering services that will consistently meet the base standards wholesale suppliers expect and every wholesale customer must give up all rights to redress for such non-delivery. Welcome to Labor's new monopoly. However it is far more serious than that.
It demonstrates the sort of people and their mind sets that are being employed by the 'NBN2'. What sort of person do you think that might be? Do you think they are people that, beyond the commercial or technical skills they have developed along the way, are going to be more interested in delivering the best possible service to their customers or are they going to be people who are going to be totally interested in delivering the best possible remuneration to themselves? Toughie....but the first desire to control the quality of the service with the draconian “must not… criticise or attribute to NBN Co any fault or blame in connection with Customer Products.” - there is a pretty clear indication that customer satisfaction isn't high on any KPI within the organisation.
So it isn't the clause itself which is the real problem. The real problem is that the new monopoly is being built out of people that hold such views as being of pre-eminent importance to protect themselves from what they know will be the results of their inherent laziness, sloppiness and don't give a damn about anybody but themselves attitudes. Tell me how it can be looked at in any other way?
PS: Is this the record for an ISP opening and closing in the shortest time. "Lots of second hand Cisco equipment"? Reminds me of a similar approach.
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/258978,fortana-internet-services-back-online.aspx
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