In addition to yesterday’s apparently long article (looks short to me?), I didn’t actually state a few other things related to that topic.
The topic was telco consultant, Kevin Morgan, who is likely to be on Telstra’s own payroll, about FTTN, and the compensation claim that could follow it, totalling $20 billion dollars (yeh, right).
Anyway, I covered the fact that the compensation will have a very, very hard time reaching even $1 billion, for a few reasons, such as: The profit they receive is no where near that, the network isn’t being stolen, Telstra are still making an income from FTTN using ULL based products, Telstra will still be able to maintain the retail prices it does maintain now, and make even more profit, because apparently they claim their costs are higher than a G9 FTTN (yeh right Telstra).
So, looking at this realistically, even if they were entitled to compensation, even if they were entitled, by some weird, out of this world, extraordinary twist, that defies all logic, I think they should be given the compensation.
Though, if they were given $20 BILLION, I would expect the infrastructure to physically change ownership, in fact, I expect the G9 members to OWN the copper network, because that’s what it could be valued at MAX.
In fact, if the compensation totalled that much, I say, they screw Telstra completely, and install FTTH to the homes, and that’ll force competition.
That’s not required now, and is too expensive anyway.
I think for several reasons, if Telstra claim compensation for “compulsory acquisiton” then, the compulsory acquistion should take place, and Telstra should lose all ownership rights to that as a result.
I don’t think this is something worth arguing too much over, because the telecommunications services in Australia provide BILLIONS of dollars of REVENUE a year. Further, the decisions we make now shape the future.
So, if we look at giving Telstra another 14 YEARS of the same old monopoly CRAP we put up with today, where they operate not a wholesale operation, but a two teir retail operation, where wholesalers pay the equivilent retail prices anyway, to deliver the same service to a consumer with $5 profit. This cannot be duplicated in the future.
We need an open competitive framework. Telstra’s plans don’t offer that. They offer 14 years of the same crap we presently have.
If we continued this, we’d have the same problems continue on 14 Years later, 30 years later and more.
We should fix this problem NOW, and not let younger generations continue to pay stupidly inflated prices for essential telecommunications services. It cannot continue.
Further, we can’t stop at just giving the G9 FTTN rights. Sure, they won’t have a monopoly in the sense of the Telstra situation, they’ll have a far, far better operation, but we still need to encourage investment, and encourage more competition, we need to make sure that the continued price squeeze situation that currently stands is near impossible in the future.
We need multiple nodes to begin happening as the single FTTN node changes.
We need providers prepared to run fibre to a customers home eventually and kick off FTTH from those nodes, and encourage innovation, encourage growth, and encourage competition.
The framework for that needs to be developed now, and ALL factors should be considered, not just the meters to the customer home, the exchange access should also be considered.
The backhaul that Telstra prices at incredibly high prices should also be considered.
All should be incorporated together to determine the right price point, not a point where everyone finds it easier to simply resell someone elses rubbish, like a lot do now with Telstra, but, encourage them to go further, invest and set up their own businesses, invest in their own infrastructure and make their own profits.
The limit should also be put in place that we aren’t digging up the streets every day! So, we should only ever need to allow no more than 3 seperate operations to customer premises, so that the competition situation remains.
We need to focus on competition, we need it at any cost, because if we continue the monopolistic, artificial competition ways that Telstra enjoys the rip off pricing to, we’ll see us having slow speeds many times over again until the situation is resolved completely. Step 1: Don’t give the rights to any new networks to Telstra.
Enjoy!