Telstra is the real cause of children not being able to access the resources they might be able to over the internet to further their own education.
Telstra’s broadband plans are far from giving users the freedom to access the information available on the public internet, with plans containing a puny 200Mb of data, users would get to see the opening slides of the great wall of china, and then be paying through the wall in excess usage charges of $150/GB.
Telstra / BigPond’s marketing theory here is, give them a huge bill in the first month, if they take it to ACA, fine, we’ll waive it, if they pay, good for us, if they whinge, they can get moved to a plan, and still be stuck on the 24 month contract, however, by the time that 24 month contract has finished, many should have forgotten about the excess usage bill and remain customers, until a competitor approaches them with a better deal.
The users in that case appear too dumb, or too uninformed to understand the better offerings are out there, and you don’t have to look past the end of the great wall to find them.
Considering seriously here further though, it’s not just the 256k / 200Mb rip off that is holding education back for kids courtesy of Telstra. A new estate, in Gemfields, Qld is capable of getting broadband, as 2 users are already connected (Telstra claims by mistake). Anyone else in that new estate cannot get a connection however, because of Telstra alledgedly refusing to connect anybody else until they get some $ from the government.
Telstra have had far too many dollars from the government as it is. They’ve had billions upon billions, and further, they had a big advantage no one else will have, which is also worth BILLIONS, if not TRILLIONS. The advantage was being government owned while their entire network was built. The risk is 0, the government owns it all, so the risk is the governments.
If you ask me, Telstra’s $60 bn payment is far from fair payment for the purchase. They get exchange buildings, a australia wide network, DSLAMs deployed, countless hours of staff labour, and the big advantage, that they will be the only one to be government owned while it built a network Australia wide.
The advantage they got is worth billions on its own, as they can be sure that no one else is going to be speedily investing in another national backbone network, exchanges, and so forth at all, as it simply isn’t worth it. So, they get to be the monopoly provider in that area.
But, Telstra refusing to connect services until they get government funds for what seems to be services ready to simply connect is far from fair. It’s absolutely greedy.
They won’t be getting a cent, I am certain of it. They don’t deserve it. Holding kids education away from them for no real reason except political games and greed.
Shame Telstra. Shame.
Enjoy!