<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On 12/08/2010, at 8:09 PM, Tim McCullagh wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><br></font>Then it was sold because the community said it was to inflexible expensive <br>and those in power said that we needed competition to fix it.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That's not the reason it was sold ...</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>Competition reduced prices which was considered good<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Ok.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><br>Then Optus rolled out a cable network and Telstra rolled out the same <br>network. None of them made money. Optus made a deal with Telstra to reduce <br>its exposure to some costs. Everyone then said don't invest we will resell <br>Telstras network. Telstra said fine but the wholesale price will be similar <br>to telstras retail price. The industry complained to the government and the <br>ACCC. Governments on both sides with the ACCC tried to level the pricing, <br>some services were declared and the ACCC stuck its nose into the market <br>which resulted in less competitive infrastructure<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I think that's a bit of a wierd take.</div><div><br></div><div>Telstra, being fully vertically/horizontally integrated and having, well, ALL the customers and profit and infrastructure is a hard beast to start out competing against when you start at the beginning. It's a monopoly and it is happy to use it's market power to squish.</div><div><br></div><div>Optus, in the above example, experienced this. Telstra didn't need a cable network, but did it just to stop Optus. It was quite effective as a strategy for Telstra.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>.......<br>......<br>then<br>we ended up where we are today. Noone investing in fixed line <br>infrastructure other than Telstra other than greenfield estates. I still <br>fail to see why Telstra should have to spend the capital to get small <br>returns on investment in what is a risky business, especially with <br>governments forever sticking their nose in without understanding the <br>consequences.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>How is Telstra's business "risky"? Seriously? Look at their annual report, the profitability and tell me where the risk is?</div><div><br></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><br>I often wonder what a difference we would be seeing today if the conduit <br>network was open access at inexpensive rates, yes something as simple as <br>that may have revoltionised fixed line networks. It would have resulted in <br>multiple networks ................perhaps<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Conduit is indeed available. But, that's only part of the story.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><br>I will be as brave as to state that the reason we are in the situation we <br>are today is because of governement interference in the market without <br>addressing the structural ramifications of such interference. Eg the <br>megapop dial deal done with Telstra before one election and labors NBN which <br>has basically put all development on hold for 3 years to give 2 of many <br>examples<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div>FTTN started WELL before Labor - remember back in 2005 when Sol came to town? That was the problem. Blaming Labor for that is, well, a bit wrong.<br><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><br>Going down the NBN path will take competition back 30 years. As for those <br>that say that the new model will be about service, yeh right. If there is a <br>fault we will all have to report it to NBN (monopoly tell someone who cares <br>network) and wait for them to test and fix as opposed to logging into our <br>own systems and determining what the problem is and just fixing it. I can <br>see vividly the case of storm damage and massive delays, unless NBN has <br>staff sitting around, not likely<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I think you're just trying to see failure. </div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><br>The more I think about this the more I see it as a back to the future dumb <br>idea. I am not into the wank factor of having fibre like some. I just want <br>something that works and that I can afford and this is what my customers <br>tell me as well<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I want something that works and doesn't break every year (as my phone line at home does because of no maintenance of the CAN). I'd also like something which scales in the future.</div><div><br></div><div>Again, tell me -> how would, if we didn't do NBN, fix the regulatory environment and how would your suggestions be valid for the next 40-50 years?</div><div><br></div><div>Otherwise maybe you don't actually have a plan other than to do nothing and wait for failure?</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><br>regards<br><br>Tim <br><br></div></blockquote></div><br><div>MMC</div></body></html>