John Linton
..........demonstrates just how little anyone understands about what the FTTN tender is really all about or what it will result in.
I just finished watching the ABC "Inside Business" segment on the FTTN tender and what it all means (compressed in to 15 minutes of 'sound bites'). The ABC segment director had assembled an impressive array of 'experts' including Kate Mackenzie (Head of Telstra Wholesale) the founder of PIPE and a number of impressively titled 'analysts' from Australia and a couple from the USA. I fully understand that TV content, even that allegedly aimed at 'business' people, is put together by people who have little knowledge of and less interest in the material they grind out and this particular piece conformed to that 'standard' of no facts, no comprehension of the topic and a line up of muppets spouting their particular 'party lines'.
It was a complete waste of time and money with absolutely nothing being said by anyone that either added any new knowledge or insight or even demonstrated any understanding of what's involved or what the results might be. I regret spending the 15 minutes of my life watching it. Fortunately I was having breakfast at the time and desperately attempting to finish the Saturday SMH cryptic crossword so it wasn't entirely wasted. However it did re-emphasise that almost no-one in Australia either understands or cares about what the FTTN 'tender' will do to their future lives.
I've come to the view that as no-one (other than Telstra) has any real idea of what it will really cost to build this concept, and they have a poor track record of making correct estimates of the costs of this major, end delivered service, in the event there is one, will end up costing too much for most people in most locations around Australia to use. Frankly the best result of this tender charade would be for each State to build its own network and then massively subsidise it to deliver whatever priced service they need to provide to keep themselves in government and then keep the cost down by the opposition promising lower costs at each subsequent election.
(I know that will never happen but it would solve an awful lot of problems and at least make State elections serve some sort of purpose)
So the 'tender' process will, one assumes, begin sometime later this year and will then blunder on to some non-conclusion either via the High Court or in a Labor cave in. Either way there will either be no national network or a national network that will cost so much that no-one will use it.
What does this mean? It means absolutely nothing to the 85% of Australians who live in the capital cities and an increasing number of regional cities who already have, or will shortly have, ADSL2 and, quite possibly, in the not too distant future will see higher speeds than are available currently.
For the 15% of Australians who may never get ADSL2 - well - they will shortly get one or more carrier's wireless data services at prices well below those mooted for an eventual FTTN service and they will get it 'today' not in 5 - 7 years time. It's just as likely that those 15% will get speeds in excess of 12 mbps in the not too distant future which,again, makes a nonsense of this current FTTN fiasco.
One of these days those idiots in Canberra, who know absolutely nothing about telecommunications, will have to back down from their 'promise watever it takes to win the election' sound bite "policy statement". The concept of a national network that is based on Telstra is a nonsense and can never work to any Australian's advantage; you actually don't need to be that bright to understand that simple concept - but then I guess that demonstrates how bright Crazy Kevin and Stupider Stephen are - 20 watts and dimming as more and more of their pre-election waffle is exposed as being bereft of the slightest practical applicability.
If you tried hard to comprehend the 'sub text' of this morning's ABC segment you couldn't help but come to the conclusion, from Telstra on dow, no-one who offered an opinion was sure that any of the possible bidders or any of the 'analysts' actually thought that the FTTN tender would actually result in a network being built at all or, if it was, it would take twice as long as 'planned' and be too expensive.
No real surprise in those 'sub text' views - pretty much like every other Labor election winning promise to date.