Copper Network Sale

New Zealand Telecom is looking toward selling its copper network rather than facing a regulatory split.

That’s an interesting move, they don’t get regulated, and they get a lot of cash for a copper network, as most copper networks are monopoly networks (and thus avoiding duplication of expensive copper networks, and digging the sidewalks up for new connections).

I’m thinking that perhaps they should have done this with the copper network (and other monopoly infrastructure) prior to Telstra sale.

Just think where we’d be now. One monopoly, wholesale only provider, providing telecommunications, Telstra being a retail “wannabe”, and a heap of competition driving prices low.

Now, if that was done, we’d be looking at things differently, compared to where we are now, with Telstra wanting to roll out FTTN at inflated prices just to keep a monopoly, rather than compete.

Actually, if you look at Bigpond / Telstra in comparison to a lot of others, they don’t seem prepared to compete in retail at all, and simply enjoy milking the monopoly.

Bigpond isn’t competitive, the only reason they have customers is because of the fact they have a brand name, or the cable networks.

Given the option, and the real facts, customers would more certainly look at the picture differently, and probably say NO to Bigpond.

They don’t get to see all this until after they are with Bigpond, and that means they’ve become a Bigpond victim.

Cable subscribers are generally happier, although the plans are not as great with Cable, the offering is different, no port blocking of port 80 inbound, for example, but they also meter uploads, which is a minus to simply routing port 80 via port 9010 for example.

And of course, they don’t offer many incentives compared to Optus, with the exception of the monopoly network they have.

Back to the copper network, if it was auctioned / sold off to a infrastructure provider, we’d be ranked a lot higher on OECD, probably consider 256k as the less expensive dial up, and have a booming online economy by bringing more IT services online.

Just think of the possibilities if we all had fast net connections, you could literally run your own slow traffic webserver from home, at the same time as be on a VoIP call, and have the kids watching live streaming, and those bandwidth hungry torrents running smoothly.

All that would have been possible with a bit more thought in place from the government. Without that thought, you know, what happens when Telstra is privatised, and kicks up a backlash against us for regulation, what do they do?

They simply should of stopped retail, or sold the core network, or kept it in government control, and maintenance.

By not doing so, the Howard government has screwed Australians. The plan they come up with to fix it had want to be good, otherwise Labor are in, easy. At this moment, they have my vote, depending on what Coonan decides to demonstrate that she is a clear leader when put beside Conroy, who is both a thinker, but at the same time, a fool (he has been proven to be uninformed before).

I want faster net access, and someone’s gonna bring it. Whoever is gonna get it to me fast, cheap, and with competition should remain the front runner. The G9 might be a little slow with the looks of funding and the rollout coverage, but the end result is COMPETITION, and INNOVATION. That’s drool worthy.

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