What a fantastic site from the competitors (and wholesalers) of Telstra.
Love the title: Tell The Truth Telstra.
Good luck with that one. Probably have more luck finding people to work for free to install fibre cable, compared to getting them to say anything remotely close to the truth.
The FTTN network proposed by SpeedReach does the following, that Telstra’s does not:
* Keeps Regulation intact.
* Maintains competition, and enhances it.
* Looks after Australian Consumers better interests.
* Reinvests the profits made to enhance, extend and innovate the network.
Those are fantastic points for the network.
Look at history as well.
iiNet / Internode: Released ADSL2+. Optus did so also in 2005. Telstra is turning on its ADSL2+ DSLAMs (slowly) at exchanges where competitors have ADSL2+. Taking the even safer approach also, Telstra gives the competitors a nice head start. Telstra doesn’t even offer it, for near 1 month or more after the exchange is enabled.
Time for the competitors to milk the slow period for all its worth, roll out DSLAMs, get them online, advertise targetting that community, with cheaper, faster, better value, broadband, without length contracts, or short quotas, or expensive overusage charges.
That should build a LARGER customer base, and more to it, increase the footprint of ADSL2+ ISPs to a point where they pose a bigger threat, to a point where Telstra having FTTN means they lose access to customers, and therefore, have a stronger case to plead.
A better idea, by that idiot, Alan Kohler, was this:
The government puts the rights to the building of an FTTN network up for auction, the winner of the auction is the bidder with the lowest wholesale monthly price, thus ensuring cheap, fast broadband for Australian consumers, and not ONLY that, it ensures that innovation kicks in, because there’s no way Telstra will be stepping in for a low wholesale bid, Telstra Wholesale won’t be one of its most profitable companies, will it.. They won’t be milking Australian consumers, and Australian small businesses for all the possible profits they can make.
The idea is good. They could add contractual conditions that come with the rights, for example, the rights include extending the network to 95% of Australia within 5 – 10 years, for example.
The advantage of the SpeedReach / G9 FTTN is that the initial information states its competition friendly (they don’t retail), the network would be maintained and innovated, because they won’t have greedy pigs behind the administration of it.
The incentives here from the SpeedReach / G9 FTTN idea are all fantastic, and the plan is sound.
I don’t see why Telstra would be a clear leader, except for the fact they are threatening to sue if the G9 are allowed to seize copper wire from Telstra, thus cutting their services, and running those services from the node.
The issue here for Telstra is clear, they are threatened. The G9 consortium could be given access to freely walk into Telstra exchanges, tear out the copper, run some fibre, and charge Telstra for access.
Though, a clear point here, Telstra WERE invited to participate in the FTTN network, and own a share of it.
They chose not to, and declined, likely because they want the Trade Practices Act rewritten, and by holding everything in a deadlock (the copper network, refusing to release a FTTN network, limiting ADSL2+ and ADSL1 to certain exchanges or certain speeds) all suggests that this is the goal. They want to fight and put the government in an uncomfortable position in an election year, but they didn’t run the math properly: 1.6 million shareholders, 20 million Australian’s. You are sort of outnumbered there. And with Tell The Truth Telstra revealing facts, and hopefully getting some share of promotion from other websites, They could indeed inform the uninformed, and therefore swing the opinion / rig the election so to speak.
The goal here for them is to have some supporters, so much so that instead of Telstra having any active supporters, we all see a heap of T4 Active Supporters, supporting the release of truthful information, without the deceitful misinformation, and guidance done by Telstra, and it’s propaganda website, Now We Are Talking.
So, here’s a link in support of competition, Australian consumers, Australian small business, Australian ISPs, and the Australian economy: Tell The Truth Telstra. Support Australia, withhold those dollars from the foreign ran, and foreign shareholders at Telstra, and keep them in Australia, support Australian ISPs, take your services away from Telstra (except your landline, $19.95 Homeline Budget), get VoIP, and rip those dollars away from them further.
The more uncomfortable, and the more squished into a corner they are, the more they will be forced to compete.
Those shareholders might hang Sol if he doesn’t bring them a return, so let’s put them in that position, to hang him, if anything, to support Australian owned, and Ran businesses, like iiNet, and Internode, who care about the communications infrastructure, and who don’t just look after shareholders, but the competition also.