Yep, straight from the reliable mouth of ZDNet, Telstra rejected possible customers for ADSL2+.
The government has been inconsistent also, with it’s Telstra dealings, stating during the election campaign that it would stand strong against Telstra, yet, when the time arises for them to get in a photo shoot and be seen doing something, they are all too happy to backtrack on that.
Realistically, nothing was stopping Telstra enabling ADSL2+ at the 900 exchanges last year, with the previous government in place.
The ACCC was very clear that they could do it, and even publicly stated that numerous times, and sent Telstra a letter for them to sign and send back.
Telstra somewhat deliberately set about ignoring the ACCC’s allowing ADSL2+ to be rolled out, and instead, decided that once the Rudd government was in, they’d try to ‘assist’ the government to make them be seen as ‘doing something’ by enabling ADSL2+, and inviting them along to it.
Conroy’s statement said it best, when he simply quoted the ACCC, and did so throughout.
Telstra’s argument constantly was that regulations were impairing them, and from the get go, I’ve said on their Now We Are Talking website last year, that there was absolutely nothing stopping Telstra enabling ADSL2+, and even if they did, and they got regulated, I’d sit with Telstra.
The only real argument here is for some reason, from Telstra, the Wholesale prices for ADSL1 services, and the retail prices for ADSL2+ are some what near. The ADSL2+ plans offered are somehow the same price as ADSL1 services.
Naturally, this move is deliberate from Telstra to save a reduction in ADSL1 prices, because it would be very unfair for Bigpond to drop ADSL1 prices to encourage ADSL2+ takeup, but, to get people to take ADSL2+ services up, they can’t be overly expensive (who am I kidding, just look at Bigpond and think overly expensive), so the compromise, leave ADSL1 as is, and align ADSL2+ pricing appropriately.
The competitive argument there would be obviously that ADSL2+ services are supplied at the same price for some reason (backhaul is supposed to increase costs, naturally, Kate McKenzie argues that they ‘wear’ the cost – yeh, right).
I think it’s good to see that there are ADSL2+ services coming from Telstra, I think it’s disastrous that they decided to hold consumers to ransom however, to try and argue a case for it’s own network, or try and push political favours if that is the case.
I do hope the government sticks to it’s promises and takes a hard line against Telstra and it’s actions to hold back competition, I hope the government also stops backflipping, like it has done with recent news of the removal of $50 million of funding from climate change, something it claimed it was committed to (you are committed to something, so you remove funding from it?).
I trust that wise decisions will be made with regard to FTTN, but almost certainly believe Telstra are the front runner due to the fact they plan to put in legal protest after protest to hold off FTTN from competitors.
I see that they like to be seen as doing good, so let’s hope they stop doing it for the cameras and start doing it for the consumers.
Enjoy!