Somewhere along the line, it became assumed that xDSL technologies — which run over the last-mile wiring so tightly controlled by Telstra — were the only way forward for Australian broadband. This curious anomaly has of course set Australian broadband into complete disarray, and hindered the development of viable content delivery models.
What many of us may have forgotten is that there is already a perfectly acceptable technology for delivering triple-play services — voice, TV and data over a single cable — and doing it cost-effectively and at high volume.
It is, of course, cable, and it may or may not be available in your street. A decade ago, it became the whipping boy of the day as media beatups and outraged consumer groups caused so much trouble for Optus and Telstra that they decided to terminate the rollouts, leaving Australia with billions of dollars' worth of hybrid fibre-cable (HFC) that fell far short of its potential.
A decade later we're still suffering from that policy disaster. Telstra is stonewalling on network access while the government wrings its hands and funds competitors to build a competing network. All the while, consumers are suffering — especially those in rural areas where there is effectively no competition whatsoever when it comes to broadband services.
Australia's access technology of choice is a decrepit copper network that the Telstra monopoly has been allowed to run into the ground.
As we count the costs of catastrophic political decisions made a decade ago, it has become clear that xDSL is little more than a jury-rigged solution to a pressing problem. Had the government taken a gutsier approach to the rollout of cable — for example, by mandating shared access to a single cable infrastructure instead of allowing Telstra and Optus to waste their money duplicating services — we would have a nationwide triple-play network more than capable of meeting our needs into the future.
Of course, such an approach would have run contrary to the free-for-all mentality the new Howard government was hoping to introduce with its newly deregulated market. But only Telstra has benefited, since the decision to abandon cable for xDSL saved it countless capital costs.
Yet for anybody counting on Telstra to do the right thing, this week we learn that the company is now backing away from its fibre rollout and spending its money elsewhere. And still Sol Trujillo bleats about government favouritism.
In a speech this week to an AIIA meeting in Sydney, Trujillo blamed a history of government incompetence for the current situation — but then went on to say that "giving away a billion dollars ... won't deliver Australia a fixed high-speed broadband network for consumers."
No, it won't. But it's the best chance we have right now, after the rollouts of cable and ADSL were so categorically and completely stuffed up. I don't recall Telstra complaining about government funding a decade ago, when the government was still its majority shareholder and it enjoyed a regulatory monopoly that remains, in spirit if not in law.
Both the government and Telstra are guilty of chronically poor infrastructure strategy (in the spirit of fairness, I should also mention Optus, who did also ditch its cable rollout). The only companies that have been able to make a difference are those that have innovated despite this strategy — for example Neighbourhood Cable a Ballarat-based company that has been able to effectively use cable to offer data, voice and video services at commercial scale.
Couldn't Optus, or someone else with deep pockets, fund similar rollouts in other regional areas and just get on with the progress? The technology has been there for years; all we need is the will.
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MGH
02/08/2007 02:57 PM
"Of course, such an approach would have run contrary to the free-for-all mentality the new Howard government was hoping to introduce with its newly deregulated market." Actually I think you will find the decision to allow 2 competing fibre networks was a Keating Govt decision. Nothing to do with the Howard Govt.
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Grendel
02/08/2007 04:41 PM
If that is indeed the case then isn't the present government just as guilty for perpetuating it? It's been 11 years after all.
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John
02/08/2007 05:14 PM
I believw what killed the cable rollout in Australia was the Federal Govt (Keating) allowing Telstra to mirror Optus arther than splitting the rollout. Even in a market the size of the US the authorities split rollouts into tendered neighborhoods to ensure widespread coverage before competition started, Here I have a foxtel and Optus cable running past my door, in the next street their is neither. Just dumb planning
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Hov
02/08/2007 05:35 PM
keating govt existed in an era when not having the forsight to anticipate such a need for high speed internet wasn't such a crime. Now it's a disgrace.
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Auscan
02/08/2007 05:55 PM
Hey - wake up. how much bandwidth do you think Cable can take... you load x number of users onto cable and all expecting fast speeds and your speed will become diminished quickly. I know... this happens in Canada on Rogers Cable. Been there done that. Do a little more research before you start to herald Cable as the be all and end all saviour.
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JamieG
03/08/2007 08:24 AM
You have no idea about the technical issues and future demands of networks. HFC is simply not suited to future internet use. THATS why its been abandoned.
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Aaron
05/08/2007 12:17 PM
"Australia's access technology of choice is a decrepit copper network that the Telstra monopoly has been allowed to run into the ground." If you were forced to sell a product at little or next to no profit then you would stop investing in it as well. Allow Telstra to charge what they want and then the competition will start investing in their own last mile accesses, that is when new and better technologies will prevail. HFC was only ever going to be run in places where it was easy to run, councils did not charge a bomb for access and there would be a lot of subscribers to provide a return. Why do I keep reading your 'anything to bag Telstra' stories.
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elnino
01/10/2007 10:24 PM
in the end, its only worth it if u'r close 2 the cable exchange. every one thinks cable is better than dsl, which is not necessarily true.
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