news National broadband provider Internode has confirmed some details of its pricing plans for the South Brisbane exchange area where Telstra is rolling out fibre, claiming higher prices in the region are based on the “crazy” underlying wholesale costs which it said Telstra was charging for other ISPs to access its new infrastructure.
Telstra has chosen to replace the copper connections to about 20,000 premises in the region as its South Brisbane telephone exchange — where the copper cables terminate — is being closed in order to make way for the new Queensland Children’s Hospital in the area. The region is one of the first in Australia to receive fibre services to the home — but is not part of the Federal Government’s flagship National Broadband Network project, although the long-term plan is for the infrastructure to become part of the NBN.
In a post on broadband forum Whirlpool in mid-September, Internode product manager Jim Kellett confirmed the company’s previously outlined South Brisbane fibre pricing plans would remain in force for both new and existing customers in the region.
The plans are significantly more expensive than Internode’s ADSL broadband plans, and feature much more severely limited options. For example, the company’s top-level plan will offer speeds of 100Mbps, but just 100GB of quota, for $109.95 a month (if customers also pay extra for a bundled telephone line) or $119.95 a month without a telephone line. On its own ADSL infrastructure, Internode offers 300GB of quota for $69.95 a month (plus telephone line rental) or $89.95 without a telephone line. And even when it uses Telstra’s ADSL infrastructure, the company still charges lesser prices for 100GB of quota — $69.95 plus telephone line rental, or $89.95 without line rental.
Maximum ADSL quotas through Internode range up to a terabyte per momth.
Fellow ISP TPG also this week released its South Brisbane pricing. Although the ISP’s fibre plans are closer to its ADSL plans on Telstra’s network than Internode’s are, they are still expensive and restricted compared with its own ADSL network. TPG, for example, only offers speeds of up to 30Mbps in South Brisbane, despite the fact the fibre network is capable of speeds up to 100Mbps. It only offers a maximum of 300GB of quota.
In an email interview today, Internode managing director Simon Hackett said his company was planning to offer plans with a higher quota than 100GB at some stage, but was limited by Telstra’s South Brisbane pricing. He said initially, Internode had believed customers wouldn’t sign up for plans with more than 100GB of quota because of the prohibitive pricing, based on Telstra’s model.
“It turns out that some of our customers are prepared to pay whatever it really costs us to go above 100GB, so we are currently looking to add in one or two more, higher quota, plans to the mix there,” he said. “They will be correspondingly more expensive because of the crazy underlying wholesale costs, but we’ll field those plans for those who do want to buy them.”
Hackett said Internode had discovered in its customer base a significant number of customers who were prepared to stay with the ISP, despite the high prices sourced from Telstra, “because they find the whole re-monopolisation of their services across their exchange area, into Telstra-style fibre, to be so offensive to their sensibility that they’re willing (though obviously not happy, at these prices) to stay anyway.”
“We appreciate the support, and if and when the ACCC helps to drive the pricing here to more sane levels, we’ll adjust our retail pricing in a corresponding manner,” he said.
A spokesperson from Telstra’s wholesale division has been invited to respond to the pricing issue.
Hackett said wholesale fibre access in South Brisbane should cost no more than it would on the National Broadband Network, for a bundle of voice and data services and the backhaul needed to service them. “Right now, it costs hugely more than that,” he said.
The wider issue
According to Hackett, it is likely the South Brisbane issue will not be resolved until the ACCC steps in to arbitrate the situation. Internode and iiNet have publicly called for the regulator to intervene in the issue in a recent submission, although it is not clear what approach the Commission will take. It is believed the ACCC currently sees its main priority as working through Telstra’s Structural Separation Undertaking document, which will guide how the telco will deal with others over the next decade until the NBN is fully constructed.
The Internode executive said in practice, the South Brisbane exchange area was “a no man’s land” sitting between regulations and laws intended for the NBN and the copper network situation which pre-dated the NBN.
“The exchange area is being remonopolised by Telstra, in a process which pretty brazen,” said Hackett. “There are wholesale prices that are inadequate, that include temporary rebates for existing customer service costs only (to move the issue out of the spotlight until ‘later’, I guess), and of course the whole thing removes our own access to advanced technology such as IP Multicast as Telstra haven’t invented that yet.” Multicast is used for IPTV services such as the FetchTV platform being used by iiNet and Internode.
“[South Brisbane] is being turned into a large scale Telstra Velocity housing estate, using the same (non-NBN compatible) fibre boxes, that (for instance) include [a] Telstra-retail-only Foxtel RF emulation port, and that are fine for Telstra Retail to offer plans with, because they own the road – but the wholesale access regime being offered by Telstra to replace the forced removal of LSS and ULLS is just a joke,” said Hackett. LSS and ULLS refers to the Telstra wholesale services which are offered over the previous copper network.
“We’ve signed up to it because our only alternative was to have our customers cut off entirely,” the Internode chief added. “Its not much of a choice, really, between ‘way too expensive’ and ‘no service at all’, is it?”
Image credit: Daniel L, royalty free, Internode
See what happens when the private sector builds FTTH
You get: “crazy underlying wholesale costs”
and the Libs think (wrongly) that the private sector leads to lower consumer prices – lol
“See what happens when the private sector builds FTTH”
I think you mean, “See what happens when the former government telco monopoly and current vertically integrated player builds FTTH” ;)
Telstra’s history is in the public sector, not the private.
Telstra is a private company
Telstra is no longer government owned – it was sold by the government to private investors, T1, T2 & T3 and the future fund is no longer a substantial holder of Telstra
Telstra as a private company is building FTTH in South Brisbane
Telstra is a private sector company building FTTH
“Telstra as a private company is building FTTH in South Brisbane”
True — but I think its a little more complex than that.
There’s nothing complex about it
Telstra is a private company
Too many people still think that Telstra is some sort of benevolent charity. Well as a Telstra shareholder I can tell you it is not. Telstra is a business to make money for its shareholders. If Telstra modernises its network to replace copper with fibre then Telstra can decide what services and prices it wants to provide.
Of course it’s more complex than that – the privatisation came with conditions attached, as does their carrier license.
It is exactly this attitude that has caused so many in the community to detest Telstra and avoid at all costs. This attitude is the exact reason that Telstra should be broken up in a similar manner to what has happened in NZ.
Telstra could have chosen to play nicely in the marketplace but have behaved like a bully and deserve to be duly punished. If the government was sensible they should whack Telstra hard.
joanie, telstra were vested the australia wide pstn (australia’s comms network) with strict access laws and provisos, 5 years before it was first privatised via T1. in fact the government still had a controlling interest in telstra until T3 in 2006 (iirc).
so telstra shareholders should have known this and factored this, rather than buying in blindly (and my bet is the most vocal would have told everyone, get in, it’s a monopoly you can’t lose) sans reading and understanding the prospectus/risks and/or obtaining professional advice.
as such telstra do have obligations… fancy that though, receiving a multi $b network and actually having to do something, not just simply sit back and count the $b’s in profit each year.
Joanie you should go on TV and say things like that. I’m sure you’ll find a lot of support for your viewpoint. Definitely.
Telstra’s history is as a private company. Its existence could have not come about any other way than what happened decades ago. The copper network was built as a government monopoly because it was the only way to extend communications to all Australians. That is as true today of the internet as it was back then with phones (or whatever they first used).
If there were no monopoly to be sold, Australia would be a dilapidated and disorganized mess of patchwork networks controlled by a diverse series of private monopolies. Australia would not even be considered a first world country by modern standards.
It could be a strategic move.
Telstra could want to paint itself in a bad light to encourage the NBN so it can secure the 11bn. Or, it could just actually believe the NBN will free it from politics indefinitely.
This is exactly what makes me want to slap anyone who promotes the idea “Let Telstra do it” in the chops.
It’s funny how no other company or consortium has ever gone out of its way to build a network to the home/business and actually compete with Telstra. Why because they don’t want to spend the mega bucks this type of infrastructure costs, but they always want access to Telstra at a minimum price.
The best thing that could happen in South Brisbane is for NBN Co to announce it was going to cable the area and leave Telstra with its can of worms, (real competition at work).
What people don’t realise is that NBN Co in the future will be no different to what Telstra is today, and with the monopoly legislation to go with it, (which Telstra is no privy to).
In reality all the non Telstra telcos/ISPs could have bandied together and build a real network of their own in competition with Telstra. They have chosen not to, but instead want Telstra’s infrastructure for next to nothing and cherry pick where they want to make their investment.
The people responsible for deregulation have a lot to answer for today. There should have been a requirement for any Carrier/ISP to have a national footprint. Cherry picking should have been outlawed in a way that forced these companies to spend equal amounts in regional and remote areas as they do in heavily populated areas.
This single requirement would have led to better outcomes then what currently exists today.
No Frank, it’s because you chose to selectively forget Optus’s HFC rollout and the financial toll of infrastructure competition on the private sector. Econ 101 teaches us competing on infrastructure is a money-losing proposition. That’s why it almost never happens. The incumbent has such a huge advantage that without a mind-numbing pile of capital available no one can compete. Even with that capital, recouping the investment would take decades. No private company will waste their time.
While I don’t disagree with you, unfortunately when you read the NBNCo Corporate Plan, it starts to look like NBNCo might not be much better. The two goals appear to be cheapest plan not more than current ADSL pricing and 7% return on investment to the government.
NBNCo on many pages in the NBN CorpPrices for actual services will (almost certainly) decline, but at a rate significantly less than the uptake of faster servers / downloading more.
Plans for AVC pricing are outlined on page 101:
– 1000/400Mbps falls from $150 to $90, while the average speed grows from 30Mbps to 230Mbps.
– Price falls by 40% while average speed grows by 760%
Plans for CVC pricing are outlined on page 103:
– Starts at $20Mbps/Month when the average data usage is 30GB/Month and falls to $8Mbps/Month when the average data usage is 540GB/month.
– Price falls by 2.5 times, while the average data usage grows by 18 times = growth in revenue from CVC of 720% when accounting for price falls.
Speeds on the network will be capped (page 118) with 50% connecting at 12/1Mbps and 1000/400Mbps only appearing at 1% in 2026. This reminds me of Telstra’s speed tiers on ADSL1, something I hoped we had left behind.
FTFY.
You make it seem like an achievement that in 16 years, the 12/1Mbps plan will have fallen from 50% to 36% of subscribers. 16 years of NBN and over 1/3rd will be on speeds currently obtainable by about half of ADSL2+ customers and slower than LTE. Hardly an achievement for spending $36 billion.
No. I’m not saying anything about “achievements”. I’m just pointing out that what you are quoting from the corporate plan is erroneous and has information omitted. You’re welcome.
As I mentioned above, I agree with you. But I think once the rollout reaches full steam and competition thrives, political pressure to up the speeds will mount. The pressure will come from both the internet users and the ISPs. Imagine the political points either party could score by telling their constituents “we’ve dramatically increased the speeds of the NBN without any price increases!”
And have no doubt the Liberals will feel no shame in hypocritically boasting about such an intervention.
Let Telstra do it.
Troll ;)
Could be just his opinion Renai.
You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.
you don’t like the prices?
go petition the Govt/ACCC for access to Telstra’s ducts for a reasonable (or nominal) fee and go lay your own f–king fibre.
another typical instance of blood-s–king parasites.
Telstra spends its own precious capital upgrading the network and the same vocal, usual suspects start agitating for a Telstra shareholder-sponsored “free-ride” on a privately-built network.
Um … no.
They had legislated access to one network, which Telstra ripped out of the ground and replaced with another, unregulated alternative, and provided prices which were dramatically different. There’s a difference here, Tosh, and I believe you are intelligent enough to appreciate it and not troll.
what law did Telstra break in relocating the South Brisbane exchange and replacing the copper tails with fibre?
what law mandates Telstra to offer exact equivalent wholesale access on a brand new fibre network which replaces a copper network?
what law mandates that Telstra has to implement IP Multicast and use NBN-compatible boxes on a new fibre network that replaces copper?
the prices are different because it’s a brand new, undepreciated network. do you know how much the cost of labour has gone up in the past five year alone? how the hell is Telstra going to recoup its capital investment on a brand new network by pricing access akin to a 50-year old copper network?
take this:
*Hackett said wholesale fibre access in South Brisbane should cost no more than it would on the National Broadband Network*
what a f–cking load of cr-p. do you seriously think a commercial entity like Telstra that has to fund its operations on a commercial basis without taxpayer subsidies or fiscal write-offs can afford to play the fraudulent games NBNco engages in of capitalizing sunk costs for umpteen years and pretending that it will eventually be recovered?
(tell me: how are those millions of taxpayer dollars sunk into “fibre to the home” in rural Tasmania with 15% take-up rate going to be recovered? what about the 3mln+ residences who do not subscribe to fixed broadband at all, assuming the network is rolled-out to completion?)
unlike a government bureaucracy legislatively shielded from public scrutiny, Telstra’s books actually have to be audited by a Big4 and the directors have to sign-off on the accounts at the risk of being personally sued for misrepresenting the state of Telstra’s finances. not to mention laser scrutiny applied by institutional investors and the broking community.
can you imagine Telstra’s CEO telling an equity analyst:
“yes, our wholesale fibre prices are unbelievably low… just imagine, we can replace the entire last-mile, access network and lay fibre all over Australia…. over a decade of labour-intensive capital works… and still offer pricing which is equivalent to current, regulated “on-net” ADSL pricing… yes, this is sustainable pricing and reflects our underlying, long term capital costs…. how do we do it? what’s our magic formula that has eluded the imagination of major telcos all around the world? you see… we plan to recoup our capital over the course of half a century at arbitrarily low rates of return determined by executive fiat….”
can you see the absurdity of comparing an ASX-listed corporation held to the highest probity standards in terms of financial and capital management to the financial shellgame (and outright taxpayer scam) that is NBNco?
i sure hope so.
tosh quick question, please.
you say this in relation to telstra’s new network and willingly accept a price increase to cover the investment…
“the prices are different because it’s a brand new, undepreciated network. do you know how much the cost of labour has gone up in the past five year alone? how the hell is Telstra going to recoup its capital investment on a brand new network by pricing access akin to a 50-year old copper network”?
so why do you not apply the same rules/logic to the nbn? you want it cheaper than 50 year old copper don’t you?
i think this graphically displays the advantages for all aussies of government build over private build, because as you said…
“how the hell is private enterprise going to recoup its capital investment on a brand new nbn by pricing akin to a 50-year old copper network”?
thanks tosh
still awaiting that answer, please?
thank you.
Simple, the Sth Brisbane exchange rollout pricing does not equal (unless the ACCC makes it so) ACCC regulated pricing and access on the NBN and Telstra national fixed line copper infrastructure, which are deemed designated services.
The Sth Brisbane rollout is more akin to a Telstra Velocity rollout a OptiComm greenfields rollout or a TransACT rollout, none of which come under ACCC price and access control.
that was NOT an answer tosh (oops sorry alain).
let me make the question simpler…
why is it ok according to tosh (you too apparently) for telstra to ask a premium and receive maximum roi, for their new fibre (and rightly demand much more in relation to the 50 year old copper), but it’s not ok for nbn co? where you want equal (in fact below) 50 year old copper prices?
So, you’ll just ignore the $77 million Telstra was paid by the government to put this fibre in?
Never let the facts of what really happened get in the way eh Dbremner?
The Qld Government wanted the Telstra exchange site location to build a hospital, the $77 million payment was for that site real estate and to help with the relocation and build costs for the new Telstra exchange building.
I know you would like Telstra to hand over the real estate to the QLD Government for free but real estate commerce doesn’t work like that.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/telstra-wins-77m-in-hospital-deal-20100917-15g1h.html
interesting your twin deteego said this..
telstra paid for all of this (except for the land provided, which the state government paid)
so which is it?
i wish you blokes would get your strories straight!
Huh? – that doesn’t make sense in the context of what is being discussed at all – then it’s not supposed to.
no reality doesn’t ever seem to make sense to you!
Thats right, let the competitors build their own FTTH
I bet they wont because they dont want to compete
Telstra will remain the dominant network, so there wont be any competition
Telstra is a private sector company its no longer under government ownership
I am a Telstra shareholder
“I am a Telstra shareholder”
*shocker*
Whats wrong with being a Telstra shareholder ?
There are millions of us, just ordinary Australians.
they can’t “compete” because they don’t own any infrastructure.
all they do is engage in regulatorily-imposed pricing arbitrage. an all-too-easy game.
access Telstra’s copper tails at cheap, giveaway rates determined by the generous, accomodating technocrats at the ACCC and then undercut Bigpond’s higher costs* which actually reflect Telstra’s capital burden in terms of the servicing costs of the billions of dollars of debt sitting on the balance sheet and dividend commitments.
the notion of “competing” against Telstra by exclusively using their infrastructure is completely absurd. the Competitive Carriers Coalition has truly redefined the notion of “competition” and stripped it of any meaning or substance.
i can imagine members of the CCC sitting around a conference table thinking to themselves:
“geeezz… (aside from Optus HFC) we don’t own any infrastructure, but we have already stripped Telstra of 60% of the retail broadband market… LOL.. oh no, but let’s not stop there… that’s not enough… we DESERVE the remaining 40% market share… we’re ENTITLED to it….”
“so who cares that Telstra is haemorrhaging revenue from declining retail market share and falling unbundled wholesale access charges and needs the cashflow to fund maintenance and upgrades of the fixed network? screw them! screw the consumers stuck in blackspots who are directly affected! all we care about is OUR revenue and OUR profits. everyone else can go to hell…”
“and just to show everyone how much we genuinely care about the health of the sector… we will engage in an elaborate charade, lodge a FTTN tender with zero financing lined up and pretend to play ball… heck, we will even lodge an SAU with the ACCC for a FTTN network we have absolutely ZERO intention of building… just to f–k with Telstra and the Government and waste everyone’s time…”
“and when the whole thing falls over and all parties are exhausted with our disingenuous, political game-playing, as usual, we will blame Telstra for the lack of progress in upgrading the fixed-line infrastructure instead of our own Machievallian obstructionism…”
what an admirable lot. (the amazing thing is people actually believe their rubbish, self-serving propaganda.)
* yes, Bigpond’s implied wholesale costs are higher – why do you think the quotas offered on Bigpond’s plans are so shit for the same price point relative to Telstra’s “competitors”?
That’s right
The Liberal government knows that what is best for Telstra is what is best for the nation. Let the market decide. If competitors want competition then let them build their own FTTH. The Liberal government wants proper competition. If the competitors cant compete against Telstra and we know they wont, then their wont be any competition, but thats not the Liberals fault is it.
you see, the problem is the public (or, at least, posters on internet forums) don’t realise that there is a huge illogic in the line of thinking being consistently pushed by the CCC… something along the lines of “the more we destroy Telstra, the better off consumers will be…”
the problem with this (as you have intimated) is that, aside from the brief aberration of the limited Optus HFC build and greenfield FTTH estates, there’s only one telco in Australia consistently pouring in billions of private shareholder dollars into the national fixed-line network, year in and year out… and that’s Telstra (or Hellstra, Shitstra or whatever your preference is…).
if you “kill Telstra” or strip them of revenue by eroding their retail market share (margins) or wholesale charges (ULL, LSS, WLR), how the hell do you expect investment in the fixed-line sector to take place?
the (il)logic behind this populist Telstra-bashing is very peculiar.
i don’t think there’s any more people out there who want to destroy telstra than there are telstra people/stakeholders wanting to destroy optus or competition generally.
as someone who claims to understand business tosh, i am surprised that you would (as i believe you do elsewhere with your obvious political bias too) let your stake/love of telstra cloud your judgement, in relation to business.
as such, have you ever thought how much easier all this would be if we had one external wholesaler /network owner, not aligned with any telco/isp, selling to many rsps (all on a more equal footing)…and as a consequence, creating actual competition at retail level?
oh, just like the one being built right now!
There is a competitor called NBNco, they are in the process of building their own FTTH. Currently they are negotiating with Telstra but hypothetically lets assume that deal doesn’t go ahead and both networks end up competing with each other. Do you think the copper network you own will be able to compete with a fibre network that ISPs will be offering cheaper faster plans on? Also do you believe the government is obliged not to build a competing network just to protect your investment?
The pricing NBN Co has proposed is based on them getting all Telstra’s customers. If there were competetion then one would expect NBN’s pricing to increase significantly. Competetion in the fixed access space would mean the customers would be losers.
So what you are saying is market conditions in Australia cannot support more than one fixed line network? I think that’s all the information I need. Thanks for stopping by.
“There is a competitor called NBNco, they are in the process of building their own FTTH.”
There is no ‘competitor’ called the NBN Co, the NBN Co requires all existing working fixed line infrastructure to be closed down to ensure there is no competition.
Weird definition of competition.
Until that existing network is shutdown they can be considered competitors.
Just like the LTE wireless network, Telstra will be abe to offer many people speeds equivalent to the NBNCo base speeds on copper for a cheaper price. Possible as many as 50% of customers will be content with saving money. The corporate plan predicts that 50% will connect at 12/1Mbps (page 118).
Unfortunately that will make the NBN plans more expensive because there will be less customers. Half the customers = twice the revenue per customer to balance the books. The only place NBNCo will be able to adjust pricing is a the premium end where fibre is the only option.
FTFY.
It also means your 50% at 12/1mbps claim evaporates.
NBNCo are already predicting that of the premises passed by fibre only 70% will connect. 13% will opt for wireless only because it is cheaper than the NBN.
If they loose 50% of the 70% because they choose not to migrate from the copper network then it becomes 35%. That has to do some damage to the Corporate Plan considering the bulk of costs is in running the fibre.
BTW it is 55% in 2013 for 12/1Mbps plans. I just picked a rough average for the first 10 years.
Only 70%? Sounds like current ADSL2+ numbers. Are you aware that not everyone with a phone line connects to the internet?
Are you or the corporate plan saying they will lose 50%? Is your reasoning for this because LTE will be cheaper than a 12/1mbps plan?
Ok, you want to do averages now. (and lets just forget that previously your claim was for the whole 17 year period) So you know what the average for 25/5mbps and greater speeds in this 10 year period right? It’s 50%. Amazing. One wonders why you don’t ever point this bit of information out.
Chris if there were competition NBNCo would drop prices to ensure Telstra’s eventual bankruptcy. Copper can’t compete with fiber. It’s impossible. Fiber is literally 10-100 times faster.
NBNCo could mandate that everyone receive 100 mbps for the same low price on fiber, with unlimited quotas.
This is why Telstra agreed to the deal with NBNCo to pull out copper and migrate their customers to the NBN. Their stock would have dived and they would have gone bankrupt if they tried to compete with the government.
Of course what that shows you is it’s cheaper for the government to run the network.
“The Liberal government knows that what is best for Telstra is what is best for the nation. Let the market decide.”
These two sentences are entirely contradictory. Your bias is so intense I’m a little shocked.
How do you compete in infrastructure? How can an incumbent infrastructure provider be defeated? In the history of capitalism can you provide an example of this happening?
interesting tosh…
“they can’t ‘compete’ because they don’t own any infrastructure”, you say about telstra’s (so called) competitors.
hmmm, yet not so long ago you were telling us the big bad nbn is a step backwards, because it eliminates this flourishing network competition.
how, on the one hand, can the “nbn eliminate network competition”, if, these so called competitors (let’s call them retailers) aren’t actually competing, because “they don’t own any infrastructure”?
yet another contradiction/ambiguity, which you may be best to let slide and AGAIN NOT answer…!
“Thats right, let the competitors build their own FTTH
I bet they wont because they dont want to compete”
Of course they won’t …. and neither should the good people of Australia ….. Why would we want multiple networks being built out in the same suburbs?
What if we had multiple roads running right next to each other…. or two separate water delivery networks?
Infrastructure competition for communications networks is not desirable.
We require government regulation to prevent infrastructure competition, and to ensure access outcomes for the people.
This does not preclude either a public monopoly (ie. NBN) … or a private infrastructure industry (eg. what we have now), with regulation ensuring access standards and sharing. The key is in the regulation.
I work in the Internet industry.
let me rephrase that for you.
Telstra spends its own precious capital upgrading the network ….that the public paid to build, not telstra……and the same vocal, usual suspects start agitating for a telstra shareholder-sponsored “free-ride” on a privately…upgraded…. network.
See the edits and you are closer to the truth.
Regulation aside, you arent even close to being honest about the situation.
so the ducts/pits were dug and constructed a long time ago… even using existing ducts/pits, it’s still a very costly exercise to go about replacing all the copper with fibre. (otherwise, long-term industry players like Optus would have sought access to the ducts for a nominal fee and duplicated Telstra’s entire access network.)
and why do you assume that the ducts and pits can be used “as is” and doesn’t require substantial remediation work for installing fibre?
also, while the ducts/pits were constructed many decades ago by PMG or what not, they were SOLD as assets to Telstra Corp for tens of billions of dollars. this is why NBNco (or the Federal Government) has to pay Telstra to access the infrastructure. they can’t just “use it”.
the money Telstra shareholders paid for those assets is REAL money. some of it sits on Telstra’s balance sheet in the form of debt that has to be serviced. the Government built it and then sold it. end of story.
and once again you neglected the important bits, so i’ll edit your comments again.
“While the ducts/pits were constructed many decades ago by PMG or what not, they were SOLD as assets to Telstra Corp….along with certain conditions that telstra frequently choose not to adhere to… for tens of billions of dollars”
Quote from above
“While the ducts/pits were constructed many decades ago by PMG”
Are you suggesting that the PMG knew where all the growth spots were going to be before 1 July 1975 and put all the pits and pipe in place before anyone else knew where the roads and other infrastructure was going to be. Most of the cabling pre 1975 was above the ground anyway. Man you have a lot to learn.
Blind Freddy could see how wrong your logic really is.
Are you trying to say Telstra has to pay for these now? Well no, the estate owner has to put them in and pay for them. Road to house, well that would be the owner of the house.
The public hasn’t contributed to Telstra’s infrastructure since 1 July 1975. The time the PMG was split up. At that time Telecom Australia was required to pay treasury for its assets. Funny how convenient it is for you and many others think otherwise.
Treasury (and therefore the taxpayer) has done pretty well out of the breakup of the PMG. Collected a tidy sum not once but twice for some assets. The second time around with the sale of T1, T2 and T3.
Some people need to get over the privatisation issue. Once it was sold it no longer belonged to the taxpayer. Telstra has much more infrastructure now than it did in 1975.
If you really knew the history, you would know there was no free ride. Get over it and get your facts right.
U mad bro? (I’m sorry I couldn’t help it)
100mbps with 5mbps upload? Pathetic.
btw I’m still waiting for the anti-NBN crusaders to explain why it is OK for Telstra to replace copper connections forcing customers to use fibre but not OK for NBNco to do the same thing. Where is the “cheaper” copper option???
the difference is… an intelligently-designed “NBN” would only replace the copper tails with fibre where it is absolutely necessary, i.e. degraded, wet, etc… by doing so, your overall costs are much lower and you can even afford to cross-subsidise the minority of households served with brand new fibre.
on the other hand, Labor’s approach of indiscriminately replacing the entire access network with fibre unnecessarily evelates the entire cost base by an equivalent (and extravagant) extent, and logically, leaves no room for internal cross-subsidisation to dampen the inevitable pricing increases.
Completely rubbish.
On a FTTN Network the network will NOT be “Intelligently designed” because that would cost MORE MONEY.
That’s why we have issues today with RIM and CMUX and TOO FAR FROM THE EXCHANGE debates.
AT&T has this problem in the USA where, they would rollout a network and their users still get rubbish speeds.
Tosh, I cannot believe you can hide behind a username and tell people this rubbish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_high_speed_digital_subscriber_line_2
there’s what… around 40 countries listed there deploying FTTN?…
oh, i suppose all those countries are wrong… and Conroy/Rudd the telco experts are right.
whatever floats your boat.
I can post Wikipedia links too…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_country
There’s what… around 50 countries listed deploying FTTH?
I suppose all those countries are wrong.
Whatever floats your boat.
yes…. and what is the global subscriber count on FTTN vs FTTH?
In 2011 or 2021?
2011 statistics are facts. actual reality.
you can predict the future?
No, of course not. I just assmued moving goal posts was perfectly acceptable, it is OK right?
So do you want to talk about deploying FTTH and deploying FTTN? As in “in progress” or do you want to talk about global subscriber count which has no relevance to the number of countries deploying FTTH vs the number of countries deploying FTTN?
How many countries deploying FTTH require all existing working BB fixed line infrastructure to be switched off and billions given to their corporate owners to ensure the FTTH monopoly has maximum compulsory uptake?
Last time I counted one. Thanks for stopping by.
@daniel
“On a FTTN Network the network will NOT be “Intelligently designed” because that would cost MORE MONEY.”
How did you conclude it would ‘cost more money’ – gut feel or something more substantial?
perhaps daniel was alluding to building fttn and later updating to fttp, which the panel of experts, who were gathered to adjudicate the initial rfp, came to the conclusion (Dec 13 2008) was NOT financially viable…
So why is it financially viable in overseas countries that have a mix of FTTN, ADSL, HFC and FTTH and NOT here?
What is also remarkable about the overseas infrastructure rollouts is that they don’t require the existing working infrastructure to be shut down and billions given to their respective corporate owners to do so.
That’s being financial viable and responsible.
i’m simply telling you what they said. please feel free to baselessly refute it…
but that will not change their verdict… which was again, FTTN IS NOT VIABLE … ooh HERE IN AUSTRALIA.
yes, here in oz, because strangely, i don’t believe evaluating the UK, china, kazakhstan or wherever else was part of their charter!
so thanks for pointing out, that while it may be viable in more densely populated, smaller geographical regions, it just isn’t viable here…!
FTTN is not just being rolled out in densely populated small geographic regions, but then you know that, FTTH is ONLY viable in Australia because you need to shut down existing working infrastructure.
FTTH is not viable in its own right because it is simply technologically superior, if that was was the case leave in all existing infrastructure and let it compete on its merits.
No way!, Labor is not that stupid, you need to to force the punters onto it then you can brag about how popular it is, and how it ‘justifies’ the $43 billion dollars.
lol.
That’s right, it is viable regardless. Perhaps you missed the very competitive plans from iiNet etc. You don’t need to shutdown the existing network but it doesn’t make much sense to keep it running when it is totally redundant and outdated… unless you are arguing that socket competition is important in which case you would be complaining about the South Brisbane issue, but we don’t see that at all. So you are either wrong or a hypocrite.
hmm, still weren’t able to refute the poe, saying fttn is not viable here eh? so… you therefore have to agree. 1 down.
fftp is viable if for no other reason but (although there are many) it replaces the ‘superseded copper’, fttn does not (entirely).
remember ‘befre roads there were on roads…LOL’? well the analogy is that you believe dirt/asphalt, dirt/asphalt, is preferable to all asphalt. because it’s cheaper in the short term, sigh.
$43B eh?
There is quite a simple test about the viability of the Labor FTTH NBN, would it survive competing against ADSL, ADSL2+, FTTN and HFC – nope otherwise why are Telstra and Optus being gifted billions to shut down their networks forcing all punters onto the NBN.
FTTH competes overseas on the principle if a residence wants it it will buy it, here a residence will have to buy it if the want fixed line BB even if they are totally happy with ADSL1, ADSL2+ or HFC.
Explain how anyone is forced here. Is there anything in particular stopping Telstra and Optus from saying NO to the NBN deal? If Telstra and Optus are transferring their customers from their old network to a new fibre network that is their choice. If you have any complaints about it perhaps you should take it up with Telstra and Optus not NBNco or the government.
That principle doesn’t seem to exist in South Brisbane… it’s ok to force customers onto fibre even if they are totally happy with ADSL2+?
you still haven’t disproven the poe findings that fttn is UNVIABLE here in oz…
we are waiting.
@HC
“That principle doesn’t seem to exist in South Brisbane… it’s ok to force customers onto fibre even if they are totally happy with ADSL2+?”
What is out about the Queensland Government wanting the Telstra exchange site to build a hospital therefore requiring Telstra to build a brand new exchange and new links don’t you understand?
dodge, weave, deflect…
the poe verdict?
What is it about ripping up perfectly good last mile infrastructure, forcing people onto fibre and not giving people a choice don’t you understand? Telstra had to build a new exchange but that doesn’t explain the fibre and it doesn’t explain decommissioning the copper.
btw mod99nar did you notice that all exchanges in Australia will be replaced with 121 POI, therefore any premises connected to this new network need to be connected with fibre too, that’s your logic, you seem to be in favor of the NBN and just dont know it.
@HC
“Telstra had to build a new exchange but that doesn’t explain the fibre and it doesn’t explain decommissioning the copper.”
Well it does actually, totally, but if you want to sell Telstra the idea that moving all the copper links and switching gear from the old exchange site to the new one instead of laying new fibre links altogether is more cost effective go ahead.
Bring it up at the next shareholder meeting as a cost saving point for the Telstra board to contemplate.
lol
No it really doesn’t. These premises in South Brisbane will not have a choice how they connect to in the internet now and according to you socket competition is important so surely you need to start whining to Telstra right?
No.
And just like that we’ve established that you are a hypocrite. Thanks for stopping by.
@HC
“Explain how anyone is forced here.”
If you want a fixed line connection in the post NBN Co monopoly it has to be hung off a NBN Co owned ONT box. (BTW don’t mention the batteries.) lol
” Is there anything in particular stopping Telstra and Optus from saying NO to the NBN deal?”
No, but you don’t ignore a multi billion dollar taxpayer fed free gift horse in the mouth and walk away from it do you?
“That principle doesn’t seem to exist in South Brisbane… it’s ok to force customers onto fibre even if they are totally happy with ADSL2+? ”
For the hundredth time the Sth Brisbane exchange situation was unique, the QLD Government wanted the site for a hospital, otherwise yes they would all still be on ADSL2+.
You and others should stop trying to create the illusion that the Sth Brisbane exchange equals a NBN rollout, then desperately trying to point score as if that falsehood is a reality.
And people in South Brisbane?
So Telstra and Optus are chosing to take the money, great, now we are getting somewhere. We’ve established that Telstra and Optus are forcing customers onto the NBN. Not the government or NBNco. Glad we got that sorted…
So what you are saying is fibre in South Brisbane was a replacement network not an alternative? hmm sounds like what NBNco are doing.
There is no creating illusions here. I was saying ages ago when everyone was whining about their precious copper getting ripped up I said something like “if Telstra did it you wouldn’t have a problem with it” of course you ignore the fact that NBNco are paying Telstra to decommission the copper so it is effectively the same thing. Seems to me if you were sincere about you complaints you would have an issue with what Telstra are doing in South Brisbane not just the NBNco deal.
Yes I understand the intent behind all of that superfluous diversionary waffle, so that’s a no then as shown by the factual examples, Telstra would not roll out dial-up if ‘they had their own way’.
@ hc, he must have missed where hackett said that, lol?
Diversionary? Remind us exactly who is being diversionary here. You cant even answer simple questions about Telstra forcing people onto fibre in South Brisbane. That is the topic here but you still seem to be obsessed with this one issue of Telstra wanting to go back to dial-up if they could. If they could they would, that is the nature of the beast. Get over it.
In other words 93% of premises. The goal is 100mbit and 1gbit.
Sounds like what Telstra are doing in South Brisbane. So the question remains: Why is it OK for Telstra to replace copper connections forcing customers to use fibre but not NBNco… I await more special pleading.
“Why is it OK for Telstra to replace copper connections forcing customers to use fibre but not NBNco… I await more special pleading.”
Easy, the Sth Brisbane exchange rollout funded by a private corporation at their own CAPEX risk in a agreement with the QLD Government does not equal a multi billion dollar white elephant national FTTH rollout funded by the taxpayer with a dubious ROI, what was that phrase used about it in the SAU submission to the ACCC by the NBN Co?
Oh that’s right it faces:
“UNCERTAIN DEMAND’
I see so customers having a choice is not so important after all. This is what I was saying months ago when people were complaining about their precious copper getting ripped out. Your hypocrisy has been exposed.
You totally ignored the thrust of the points made and went off on a tangent of your own making because you don’t want to go there, but there is nothing new under the sun about that strategy is there HC?
Seems you ignored mine. So we’ve established that it’s ok for Telstra to force customers onto fibre and not give them a choice but for NBNco it’s a big no no… you just have to take the special pleading into consideration.
yes hc, the hypocrisy and/or selfishness of some, believing it’s been ok to have a last mile monopoly but no nbn monopoly is unbelievable.
i’m still awaiting an answer too, from the usual suspects, with them speaking of ‘choice’.
which is better choice for the consumer, hfc available to only a select few in capital cities, from just telstra and optus or nbn available to everyone with the choice of many rsps?
Indeed Pepe. Honestly I think you’ll be waiting a long time for an answer though, when faced with even a simple question like mine they turn to jelly yours may be a bit too advanced. Perhaps you could simplify it.
Ahh yes ‘uncertain demand’ – love it, which is amazing seeing it is the intention to force everyone onto the NBN, yet it still faces ‘uncertain demand’.
Glad you brought up HFC RS because it too faced ‘uncertain demand’, and the uptake expectation was not met, even though the most high density areas of the biggest capital cities were cherry picked for the rollout.
Of course the difference with the HFC is that taxpayer didn’t have to wear the risk if it fell on its head.
hi alain, would you like to answer my question now?
thank you.
Speaking of forced did you notice Telstra is forcing people in South Brisbane to use fibre? What do you think about the lack of cheaper copper option here? $109.95 for 100gb? What a ripoff. Telstra Brisbane fibre is doomed… oh wait no they aren’t, they are forcing everyone onto their fibre. +1 Telstra.
going off on a tangent for a minute hc, i love the way a particular poster here ( no names), when typically proven factually incorrect and unable to answer a simple question, resorts to referring to me, pepe, as rs and thus hoping and praying for devine intervention…rolls eyes
Well pepe in those cases just refer to him with one of his previous aliases: mod99nar.
:-)
> In other words 93% of premises. The goal is 100mbit and 1gbit.
Except that only 70% of the 93% passed by fibre are predicted to connect, and 1Gbps plans only start appearing at greater than 1% around 2026.
The hype surrounding the NBN doesn’t match up with the vision being presented in the NBNCo Corporate Plan.
Only 70%? Sounds like current ADSL2+ numbers.
And??? What year do you propose 1gbps should exceed 1%, is there a magic year? Also are you aware that the numbers in the corporate plan are conservative estimates?
Let’s be honest though, by 2026 router speeds will have increased so much the reality of fiber technology will likely make 1 gbps the *minimum* speed. Even now the 12 mbps minimum is an artificially constructed limit set into place by the NBN’s pricing plan. NBNCo could easily offer 100 mbps to everyone in Australia.
I think you know this. At least I hope you know this, and vote for politicians who wish to take away these pricing restrictions to encourage mass adoption of higher speed tiers.
Picking and choosing where to replace copper is most definitely not less expensive. The entire process of assessing and categorizing line quality would require an enormous amount of time and energy to standardize quality assessments and train labor to make those assessments.
In addition you would need to scour every inch of copper across Australia, otherwise many regions would scream murder over favoritism. Your idea is simply untenable.
If they were more support for the NBN, rather than bickering about the CVC Pricing, then we would be alot further than we are now!
NBN pricing is much cheaper than Telstra’s S.Brisbane pricing will ever be, I’m quiet pissed off at Providers who think they can launch all missiles at everyone but themselves.
The providers might have studied the NBNCo Corporate Plan and realised that while it is better than Telstra plan, it is far below what could be possible.
No doubt. Backhaul is much cheaper than building the last mile. The NBN is capable of oh so much more than 12 mbps. I think people who support the NBN are also supporters of common sense and logic. I mean how else could someone believe that building an NBN and paying for it through subscriber revenue (not tax increases) is more costly than paying extortionate fees to Telstra as they sit around and let the copper network fail?
So with that rational logic, many people see the NBN is being artificially slowed down by CVC pricing. The corporate estimates for future connection plan ratios are embarrassing. 50% on 12 mbit by 2028? That’s 17 years from now. 17 years ago was 1994. At that time people were on what? 14.4k modems? 2.8k? And since then router and network speeds have grown exponentially every year.
When Verizon first started building its fiber network in America, they used BPON, which can do 650 mbps per node. They soon transitioned to GPON at 2.4 gbps per node. And in a year or so they’ll begin transitioning to XGPON at 10 gbps. Next will be 40 gbps, after that 100 gbps.
If a node supporting 32 Australians is capable of 100 gbps, but half of them are on 12 mbps as NBNCo predicts, how hilarious do you think that scenario will be?
In a perfect world, we would have multiple businesses capable of rolling out nation wide infrastructure which competed which drove down prices and offered as choice. Unfortunately as a nation of 25 million across a stupidly large land mass (for our size), thats sweet, all and bucklies going to happen. Instead you get certain areas cherry picked, then price gouged. This is exactly why we need the NBN, and exactly why the government has to build it.
+1
-1.
+2
your turn brainiac
lol
@ alain,
in all seriousness now, which part of jacob’s comment was -1?
he mentioned that it would be best for private enterprise to do it, but… etc, etc. don’t you agree?
or was the -1 just an automatic reaction, when you saw my name, rofl?
-2
no explanation, just another childishly silly minus?
do i need a +3?
seriously, rolls eyes!
+1
Stalemate broken?
Will you ever admit to the fact that your argument has thus far been merely an ideological one?
Let’s us assume that the NBN will become a reality thereby creating a fair and open level playing field as demanded for ages by Telstra opponents. My question is what shonky devious tricks will the cunning Telstra opponents try to pull to restrict Telstra (destroy fair competition) and gain advantage for themselves.
My guess of a couple would be a call for Telstra to be restricted from offering excellent and competitive deals to consumers because of Telstra’s superior financial position. The call for some of the money raised by the sale of Telstra assets to the NBN Co to be given to Telstra opponents etc etc etc. Renai let’s have a competition for more looney possibilities.
poor telstra, butter wouldn’t melt in their mouth eh?
sadly, some people who have a stake in one company, blindly believe their company to be perfect and the rest crooks…
seems there a few here today and they all hate the nbn too…!
hard to let the past and nwat go, eh boys?
I don’t know. It will be a whole new deal. Telstra won’t own the infrastructure so it can’t pull the dirty tricks it has been doing for years. I guess the others can “pull their dirty tricks” by complaining to the ACCC and try to push pricing down. I am sure Telstra will be right there with them trying to get special discount for themselves.
@ sydneyla and joanie
here’s an interesting take…imo.
http://www.moneymorning.com.au/20100212/why-you-shouldnt-buy-telstra-shares-ever.html
this was written Feb 2010, so prior to the HoA and possible rubber stamping by tls shareholders this tuesday (iirc), so…? plus the author also admits many brokers disagree.
but i thought it interesting, particularly the dividend furphy and considering at the time the article was written, tls shares were $3.30 (ironically as they were at T1 some 12+ years prior) then later dropped to $2.50 and are currently sitting at just over $3.00.
That certainly was an interesting read, this was my favorite bit:
yes the same 100 year old technology the usual suspects here cling to, and for what illogical reason… politics?
I assume the other reasons they cling to it are sentimental and emotional, you know like heritage listed sites… copper is charming, we dont want none of that new fangled fibre! it’s witchcraft that it can go so fast and dont get me started on those damn player pianos and horseless carriages!
Bizarre in the extreme.
i agree 100% alain, bizarre…
bizarre that people can still cling to copper (and dirt roads).
welcome to post 1950’s.
Bizarre indeed. That’s what happens when you look to Tony Abbott for inspiration.
Very, very similar to the reaction on the carbon tax don’t you think? The amount of lies, FUD, and flat out propaganda to stymie the passage of the legislation was unbelievable. People convinced the tax would ruin their lives, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
It’s amazing how quickly conservatives forget it was the scientists who enable their comfortable and affluent lifestyles.
I can see why the anti-NBN lobby admire him so. They are just like him, well not all Renai is quite objective. FUD, smear, half truths. What i have always hated about the guy. Hear hours of him a day driving too and from work. Too much time on stupid put downs and not enough on substance.
Heh would that really be so bad? It would serve them right. Their corporate culture isn’t capable of handling change or innovation, which will be required in the cutthroat competitive playing field of the NBN. Perhaps their latest restructuring has changed things, but I doubt it.
As I said before, Telstra paid for all of this (except for the land provided, which the state government paid) out of their own money and using their own CAPEX
If you want it to be cheap as NBN, give Telstra 800 million dollars, the same amount NBNCo received to connect ~20000 premises from the Gillard government
Also, only Telstra’s competitors are charged that amount, Telstra’s own customers don’t receive any increase in pricing to their plans.
what does that tell you? Telstra is cross-subsidising their fibre customers from other copper revenues. why can’t the other ISPs do the same with those hundreds of thousands of dirt cheap $16 ULL/$2.50 LSS they enjoy? these ISPs have already grabbed 60% of the retail broadband market in aggregate. there’s plenty of scale there. (and they don’t even have to carry any of these last-mile infrastructure assets on their books or spend a single dollar servicing or maintaining them.) why do they expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter?
the fundamental problem with the current regulatory regime is that it doesn’t encourage true entrepeneurship, innovation and risk-taking. what risks are you bearing when you’re just accessing third party infrastructure at below cost rates determined by regulatory fiat and arbitraging the artificial pricing window (gap) setup by the ACCC?
it’s a mug’s game. all it does is encourage and foster undercapitalised operators who’s only drive and motivation is to hire lawyers, regulatory experts and lobbyists to find new ways of accessing someone else’s privately-maintained and privately-funded infrastructure at ever cheaper and cheaper rates. their efforts and sweat are solely devoted towards gaming the regulatory system and panhandling for government subsidies as opposed to taking real risks, “building infrastructure” and innovating.
so what happens when you bleed the incumbent operator dry of revenue, with infrastructure maintenance reduced to a bare minimum and make the challenging economics of pouring billions more into the fixed-line sector even harder by expecting any infrastructure upgrades to be implemented in a way that suits the business models of small little ISPs which don’t risk a single dollar of their own capital or add any real value?
they now cry “market failure” and expect taxpayers to step in and spend tens of billions of dollars building super-expensive infrastructure… a brand new infrastructure playground underwritten by the Aussie taxpayer. so the poor taxpayer takes on the capital risk of a brand new fibre network which is ridiculously extravagant for a nation where almost a third of residences don’t even subscribe to fixed-line broadband. so, you’d think these greedy little ISPs would be ecstatic? but, no, that’s not enough! the access charges are too high — give us a CVC holiday!
this grandiose sense of self-righteousness and self-entitlement is galling. how unedifying.
the ISP industry must be the only sector in Australia where the standard modus operandi of “wealth generation” is to enrich yourself at other’s people expense by consuming other people’s hard earned capital.
They “grab” them because until recen Telstra prices were way higher than the competitors. What magic allowed them to lower them? Nothing, they didn’t get some sudden reduction in cost, they just decided to charge less and reduce their own profit to compete.
One of the provisions of the sale of Telstra was to provide access to he copper paid for but the Australian public at the same price as it costs Telstra.
Your not going to make your Telstra shares rise one bit with all the crap and vitriol you post. Telstra aren’t saints, they aren’t spending massive amounts of money to build the network you keep implying others are getting at bargain rates, most of it was in place before they were sold. They may have invested in 3G but have done f all for fixed line since they were sold.
I their has been any company that has enriched themselves of other peoples hard eared capital it’s Telstra. They have never lower their prices other than in response to competition.
Get over Telstra, take your blinkers off and stop Telstra ass kissing. If you invested in them and want to claw back all your losses over the years, good luck. Why not put effort into investing more wisely rather than flogging a dead horse.
where did i say i own Telstra shares?
take a chill pill.
there must be millions upon millions of posts by the illiterate blindly parroting CCC propaganda abusing and slandering Telstra all over Australian IT forums.
yet you get upset over a single solitary poster who dares to question whether this public demonising is justified.
and just because a single newspaper dares to criticise Labor’s NBN, you even have a guy here (“Kevin”) belittling [i quote directly] “so-called rights” and suggesting that “reporting is a privilege and not a right”:
http://delimiter.com.au/2011/10/13/nbn-critics-cant-you-do-better-than-this/
wow… just plain WOW… some people are apparently prepared to throw greater principles such as freedom of speech and expression out the window… all over fibre broadband….
welcome to the twilight world of the NBN fibre zealots.
Like this you mean?
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/new-uk-isp-porn-filter-a-tragedy-of-transparency-privacy-and-security/737
sound familiar?
Then you have the world of the copper zealots. What a bleak and depressive place. For some odd reason everyone that lives there keeps walking into each other. No doubt nostalgia for the good old days when everything was made of copper keeps some of them going but the reality is most are on suicide watch.
I just wonder why you defend Telstra so much, what on earth have they ever done to deserve that sort of devotion?
BTW, slander is when you say something untrue, I don’t see too many untruths being thrown around with such a wide selection of things they have done to try to maximise profits of everyones expense.
I am almost certain you own Telstra shares or have some intimate connection to Telstra. It is sadly the case that people like yourself are the most likely to flat out lie over the smallest of details. You’ve been doing it in every argument about the NBN, so it makes sense you would do it over Telstra share ownership.
speaking generally, it is indeed hard to believe that anyone would be fervent in support for one and full of hatred towards the rest, sans any personal stake, sonicmerlin.
imo, it’s one thing to be pro nbn and want the best for the nation and future generations. but to support one comms company and belittle the rest, really doesn’t make sense, if there is no ulterior motive.
i can’t imagine anyone going to forums 24/7 to say how great telstra, internode, optus or whoever is, just like i can’t imagine anyone going to forums to promote, say, the CBA and tell everyone how terrible NAB, WBC etc is, again without an agenda…
couple that with an equally political agenda and i believe 99% of nbners can be dismissed, as shills.
freudian slip… anti-nbners…
:-)
Nailed it. Telstra are the type of company that would gladly go back to dial-up. It just means more $$$ for them. Screw the customers.
Actually I am pretty damn sure Telstra would lose a massive amount of $$$ if they reverted everyone to dialup
No they wouldn’t. If Telstra had their way we’d be back to the good old days with their do nothing approach because it’s cheaper.
What the hell are you going on about
Telstra upgrading its own infrastructure is completely their own choosing. Stop spreading sensationalist crap
Clearly if you think servicing a cheaper product automatically means more profit in the end game you have no idea what you are talking about.
After all, why did Telstra upgrade to LTE? Because they felt like it? Or even when they upgraded to ADSL2+, or install fiber?
“After all, why did Telstra upgrade to LTE? Because they felt like it? Or even when they upgraded to ADSL2+, or install fiber?”
To compete. Telstra started installing ADSL2+ after others have started. There as still lots of places where Telstra ADSL is a monopoly, and it’s stayed just that ADSL, no need to upgrade it to ADSL2+ if the customer doesn’t have any choice.
What ever Telstra is doing now is irrelevant, if they had their way everyone would be back on dial-up. It would simply cheaper for them and that means more $$$.
Telstra always has their way, they are in complete control over their own infrastructure
You are spreading shit HC, the only control ACCC has over Telstra is regarding its pricing of ULL/LLS
Wow, it’s almost as if you are unable to comprehend simple words and sentences. Let me explain it one more time: If Telstra had their way, that is in their ideal world everyone in Australia would be on dial-up. As it stands there are many factors that have changed the telecommunications landscape here, that means they have had to evolve too.
And let me explain it to you
Telstra does have their way. Thats why so many people have an issue with Telstra
comprehende?
Perhaps you are unaware of all the changes that have taken place here over the last 15 years… have you been asleep?
btw take note people, this is what the anti-NBN crusaders have been reduced to all with one sentence, arguing about Telstra hypotheticals lol.
@HC
“What ever Telstra is doing now is irrelevant, if they had their way everyone would be back on dial-up. It would simply cheaper for them and that means more $$$.”
Well that’s not true of course otherwise in areas that Telstra have ‘had their way’ like Sth Brisbane and Telstra Velocity estates everyone would be on dial-up.
Makes for sensationalist headline HC but of course like most of you agenda driven rants totally incorrect.
LOL but you said the Sth Brisbane exchange situation was unique. So when are they planning on laying fibre to the rest of the country? Hint: they are not. The only way the rest of the country will get fibre is if the government creates a new last mile wholesale network (lets all it the NBN). Telstra are not going to do it. It’s amazing that you cant even recognise your own contradictions here.
You said and I quote:
“What ever Telstra is doing now is irrelevant, if they had their way everyone would be back on dial-up”
Of course that statement is false, you can tap dance all day to try and divert away from that but the simple fact is it is sensationalist rubbish.
hc, i find it most pitiful that the pedantically telstra protective/nbn haters, can read a multi paged doc, which highlights many nbn advantages, pin point 1 or 2 ambiguous sentences within, ignore the main gist, and not only run with, but embellish and promote their own anti-nbn perceived BS, in relation to these sentences.
but when someone puts forward their own simple opinion, like… ‘telstra would love to have us all back on dial-up’, they are unable/unwilling to interpret, treat such an obvious, off the cuff remark, for what it is and they even want to make an issue of it…rofl!
so to spell it out… of course even though telstra could theoretically put us all back on dial up, they wouldn’t. imagine the outcry and bad pr, but if they could get away with it and make more $’s to our detriment, I agree, they (and the other’s if in the same boat) would. This is why dollar driven greed must NOT be put before aussies and why the nbn is best.
as for a particular posters incessant contradictions hc, well what have I been saying for almost 12 months?
It’s not false at all. Perhaps you missed the operative word here “IF”. You really have a hard time comprehending things don’t you? So do you want to whine about these hypothetical scenarios all day long or explain why Telstra forcing customers onto fibre in South Brisbane is perfectly acceptable?
If the operative word is ‘if’ then Telstra would have rolled out dial-up in areas that they ‘have had their way’, like Telstra Velocity estates and the Sth Brisbane exchange area.
They didn’t they rolled out FTTH, so you are wrong.
Indeed Pepe. It doesn’t surprise me either. Assuming the Telstra deal goes ahead tomorrow we can expect a new fresh wave of contradictions too. Really they can’t help it, that is the burden you bare for being wrong on a issue, you constantly have to flip-flop and come up with new arguments to justify your position, it’s only natural that the contradictions emerge.
The if still applies. Telstra could be rolling out fibre on the moon today, it makes no difference whatsoever.
You can now explain why they are rolling out fibre, is it because fibre is the future? And how will these customers have an option for ADSL2+ plans with only fibre?
I’m rarely wrong about anything, trust me, if I ever am I’ll know about it before you and correct myself.
Yes I understand the intent behind all of that superfluous diversionary waffle, so that’s a no then as shown by the factual examples, Telstra would not roll out dial-up if ‘they had their own way’.
This comment of yours seems to be a rerun alian. Here is a link to my reply http://delimiter.com.au/2011/10/14/crazy-telstra-prices-limit-internode-s-brisbane-plans/#comment-336438441
How do you… quote comments like that in italics?
http://docs.disqus.com/help/19/
blockquote + i
What competitors are you talking about, no one else has bothered building fixed line infrustructure to compete against Telstra
The only reason NBN is cheaper is because the government handed NBNCo almost a billion dollars to build their network, NBNCo have spent a grand 0$ of their own money building the FTTH network
Everyone whining about Telstra should instead whine at the government for not subsidizing/handing Telstra money to build the FTTH network
No one is allowed to build infrastructure to compete. Also the Australian public paid for that infrastructure, not the now private Telstra.
“The only reason NBN is cheaper is because the government handed NBNCo almost a billion dollars to build their network, NBNCo have spent a grand 0$ of their own money building the FTTH network”
Exactly the same as when the copper network was built, the government/public paid for it.
They were going to subsidise Telstra to build fibre to the node, but Telstra wanted about $25 bucks a month for the remain 100m of copper, or are you ignoring what brought on the FTTH plan?
“No one is allowed to build infrastructure to compete”
False (well at least before Conroy passed the FTTH legislation, prior to this year everyone was able to build fixed line infrustructure, and they have, just not to a significant degree). There was no legislative law, whatsoever, to prevent private companies from competing against Telstra (hell Optus did it with HFC), until NBNCo came along
Telstra is not a protected monopoly
“Also the Australian public paid for that infrastructure,”
No they did not
Telstra paid for the fibre installation all with their own money. Only the land was paid for by the government, and it was due to the government that the upgrade was forced (needed room for a hospital) that made the exchange forced to be closed down
“They were going to subsidise Telstra to build fibre to the node, but Telstra wanted about $25 bucks a month for the remain 100m of copper, or are you ignoring what brought on the FTTH plan?”
I don’t see how thats any different with current FTTH and NBNCo wanting a minimum of $24 a month which is the lowest AVC you can possibly purchase
another typical instance of unrestrained GREED and arrogant sense of SELF-ENTITLEMENT by members of the Competitive Carriers Coalition.
everyone knows the replacement cost of the last mile is the most expensive part of the fixed-line infrastructure. pushing fibre backhaul to the nodes, installing cabinets and cutting copper is relatively cheap, fast and easy.
yet, under the SAU lodged by Telstra’s “competitors” with the ACCC as part of their time and resource-wasting charade of bidding to build FTTN, they tried to claim almost $30/mth of value for the street cabinet installations and expected Telstra shareholders to be content with $5-15/mth for the remaining tail circuit… that’s a midpoint pricing of $10/mth… for the MOST EXPENSIVE part of the infrastructure in terms of replacement cost…
these greedy little ISPs wanted to grab 75% of the total revenue cake for doing little, owning little and risking little… faced with the same situation, Deutsche Telekom, NTT, France Telecom, Singtel would have told their so-called “competitors” to go fly a kite…
it’s sad we don’t already have FTTN in metro capitals. it’s tragic that we let greedy little ISPs who don’t have a single dollar of their capital invested or at risk in last-mile copper infrastructure hold up the entire industry just because of their petty squabbling for “retail margins”.
let’s face it — in terms of the residential market, ISPs don’t add much value. ADSL broadband is a commodity. that’s why you get massive churning between ISPs. they are all selling virtually the identical service or good.
given that the telco sector is a highly capital intensive industry, to have the entire industry dynamics (in terms of investment and regulation) held hostage or revolve around the relatively trivial game of shuffling retail market share and gross margins amongst small little ISPs (who don’t invest and don’t bear capital risks) is like walking around arse end up… no wonder we don’t get anywhere.
if you want better fixed-line infrastructure, you need to invest. to invest, you need cashflow and you need the prospect of earning a positive return on new sunk capital. simply handing over revenue and market share to parasites in the market ecology who refuse to bear any capital risk and scream the loudest doesn’t foster a healthy telco sector or a healthy economy.
it seems that with terms like “competition” and “innovation” now having entered the popular lexicon, they are often loosely bandied around in ways that completely strip them of any real meaning or substance.
“No one is allowed to build infrastructure to compete”
true
well they are allowed to it’s just in vain to even try. never heard of the hfc roll out and how the incumbent dealt with it?
funny, even those nbn dooms dayers who bagged telstra in the past now laud them, “this thread and dictates it”… rofl
deteego, you are conveniently going to ignore the $77 million Telstra were paid by the government to move South Brisbane to fibre too are you?
Because that $24 buys you a connection through hundreds of miles of fibre where the Telstra $25 buys you a connection on 30+ year old copper to the end of your street and then you pay more from then on? I can spot the difference.
Tosh, yer, usual rant. How about leave out all the crap you keep repeating and just leave the point you are making about the post. Oh, there isn’t one, as usual. None of it was a reply to the post.
Also deteego, ToshP300 and alain. Try to get who ever is paying you to stagger your work. It gets a bit obvious when you all disappear for a few weeks and all reappear on the same day. Well I guess the other alternative is that you are all the one person, or different personalities of the same person. Now there’s a scarey though, being halloween at all. Should I expect Zombies shuffling along the road moaning “Copper, copper”
i’m more than happy to receive payment or beer from anyone or any party for posting my personal opinions and views…. or even just turning on my PC and clicking on delimiter articles.* this also applies to my old posts either on WP, delim and other websites (retrospective compensation).
consideration of any magnitude and of most forms (coupons, vouchers, bank credit, cheques, etc) are welcomed. i don’t accept VISA, Mastercard or AMEX. (i can’t afford to be a member of these payment exchange platforms which are designed for merchants. should the remittances reach a certain commercial threshold, i may reconsider.)
please advise and i’ll forward you a PO Box or bank account #. (sorry, but no tax receipts will be issued for GST or other purposes of tax deductions. i don’t have the time for the paperwork.)
* caveat: however, i will not accept any offers to engage in click fraud or post any opinions which are in direct conflict with my personally-held views on the relevant issues or on topics that i’m disinterested in.
LOL you noticed that too, I don’t think these ones are being paid though Dbremner. I’m pretty sure they actually believe what they are saying. No need for money that would be a waste :-)
I did a few sums on the South Brisbane bibre rollout to see how competitive the private sector is to the supposedly wasteful NBN. In total Telstra was given $77 million to do this. I will ignore the “investment” that Telstra put in and has to charge high prices to recover, as that may or may not exist. So, what we are looking at is almost $4000 dollars per premises. OK, yer that’s better than the NBN, what was it, $5800 a premises? BUT, they have free access to existing Telstra infrastructure they didn’t have to pay for. (If they $11 billion wasn’t there per house NBN would drop to about $4500) AND they don’t have to run fibre backhaul all round the country to do it AND they are working in a heavily populated area, not having to also provide fibre to a remote town. Not very impressive.
Those two weeks though. Maybe they just got back from Europe or something.
i’ll also accept return trip tickets to Europe with points of embarkation at MEL or SYD and transit at either Singapore or Dubai. (transit longer than 2 hours is not acceptable.)
business class preferred, but economy is acceptable. i prefer to fly Singapore Airlines. in the case of economy, advance arrangements for non-smoking, centre aisle seats will be fantastic.
cheers.
you’d prefer to fly optus airlines over telstra airlines…rofl
I already mentioned the 77 million, that was for the land and lease expenses, had nothing to do with the actual fibre installation
Stop dodging the fact that you intentionally lied, companies were free to compete against Telstra for the past decade in fixed line infrastructure, up until Conroy passed the anti cherry picking legislation this year
@ deteego.
companies were free to compete with telstra but chose not to.
makes a mockery of the oppositions dumb plan to leave it to private enterprise, eh?
thanks for highlighting this.
Are you seriously suggesting the Queensland Government paid $77 million for about 1,000 square metres of land, and nothing more? Because if they did, they were seriously ripped off.
But of course, that would be ignoring statements such as this from Qld Health Minister Paul Lucas:
“But obviously as a matter of compensation the state is obliged to meet the cost of replacement of the old copper exchange”
(See here: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/telstra-wins-77m-in-hospital-deal-20100917-15g1h.html#ixzz1ayagq58w )
@Pepe
“makes a mockery of the oppositions dumb plan to leave it to private enterprise, eh?”
Except the opposition plan is not all about ‘leaving it to private enterprise’ so your point is moot.
No the isn’t to leave it to them, it’s to pay them to do it because they are so much more efficient. Yer right. They will pay Telstra to install fibre to the node, then pobably buy it back off them in 10 years so that they pay them to extend it to fibre to the home. Keep pumping that money into Telstra.
@alain,
oh, so the oppositions plan doesn’t involve private enterprise then?
you ergo agree the current nbn best, thank you!
@Dbremner
“I did a few sums on the South Brisbane bibre rollout to see how competitive the private sector is to the supposedly wasteful NBN.”
Why bother? – the Sth Brisbane FTTH rollout by a private company is in no way equable to the taxpayer fed FTTH NBN rollout in any way.
@Pepe
“oh, so the oppositions plan doesn’t involve private enterprise then?”
The NBN rollout totally involves private enterprise, unless you think all the contracted cable companies are public servants reporting direct to Conroy.
LOL
oh so it’s not a socialist/commie network after all then…
ROFL…
Why can’t they be equated? Because it is inconvenient to what you would have people believe? They both run FTTP, both are paid money by the government to do so.
Yes, the end result is different. The money paid to Telstra is dead money as it owns the infrastructure it built and will sell it to NBN or not depending on what happens in the future. Effectively being paid twice for it.
@Dbremner
Telstra is not being given Government money to build FTTH in the Sth Brisbane exchange area, why do you totally ignore why Telstra has been requested to move their exchange?
The Telstra rollout is not a 100% taxpayer funded FTTH rollout.
Also why does the Telstra Corporation have to match the same ROI percentage and therefore wholesale plan pricing that the NBN Co has planned for based on a future national rollout predicted to be finished by 2020 and where it will have no fixed line competitors?
@Pepe
“oh so it’s not a socialist/commie network after all then…”
I have never said it was, your point is what?
@alain, oh so government owned is ok, after all?
@Dean Harding
this is what the article says:
“The agreement, on commercial terms, commits the Queensland Government to pay $77 million to Telstra for them to leave the exchange.”
“This includes a $28 million loan that will be repaid to the Queensland Government.”
“Meanwhile, the State Government’s deal allows modern fibre optic cabling to be included in the new children’s hospital.”
1) the agreement is on COMMERCIAL TERMS with no mention of a state govt subsidy.
2) part of the $77mln includes a $28mln LOAN that has to be PAID BACK by Telstra (on COMMERCIAL TERMS).
3) also, as the article mentions, the deal is HIGHLY COMPLICATED — i.e. the total $77mln payment covers many components. one of these is probably a separate contract for the specialised provision of fibre optic/communications services to the brand new $1.4bln hospital.
4) also, the costs involved in acquiring land, getting permits, zoning and constructing a new exchange are separate to the cost of trenching fibre to the various premises in South Brisbane.
“also, as the article mentions, the deal is HIGHLY COMPLICATED”
I agree, I was responding to the comment by deteego who said the $77 million “was for the land and lease expenses, had nothing to do with the actual fibre installation” which is clearly an oversimplification.
My point still stands, the 77 million was not used for the FTTH installation, if you read the press releases, as Toshp300 pointed out quite clearly
@ dean,
i agree. the claim was made that the $77m was for the land and leasing ONLY…
and the one thing this article clearly puts to bed, is that furphy, as there are indeed many aspects, not just land/leasing, as was WRONGLY suggested.
>Now there’s a scarey though, being halloween at all. Should I expect Zombies shuffling along the road moaning “Copper, copper”
My good sir, I do believe your joke induced me to spit out my drink in uncontrollable laughter. Well done.
Discus’s handling of nested comments has got to be the worst implementation I have ever seen outside of ArsTechnica. This is patently comical. This huge conversation is all out of order and incredibly confusing.
You get used to it however there is a Delimiter Forum which I think would be more suitable for these conversations.
Well since $77mil should have quite adequately paid for the entire fibre network and the new exchange what did they spend it on? Their salaries and bonuses, coke and hookers? Then they used share holder supplied funds of near equal amount to th do the work?
“My point still stands, the 77 million was not used for the FTTH installation”
But that wasn’t your point. Your point was that the $77 million “was for the land and lease expenses.” If you want to change your point after the fact, that’s fine. But clearly, the $77 million was for numerous things one of which was to “meet the cost of replacement of the old copper exchange”.
Where do you think the $77 million went to, if not construction of the new exchange and FTTH?
@Dean
this is what the article says:
“This includes a $28 million loan that will be repaid to the Queensland Government. The loan pays for the replacement cabling to local residences.”
the remainder of the $77mln does not have to be “paid back” — it is outright compensation for “seizing” the old South Brisbane exchange site from Telstra.
on the other hand, the cost of laying fibre is borne by Telstra, because the $28mln is a LOAN on commercial terms that has to be paid back. there is no subsidy or “outright grant” for laying fibre.
here’s what your amigo alain said above (in response to dbremner),
…”$77 million payment was for that site real estate and to help with the relocation and build costs for the new Telstra exchange building”…
curiously that’s at loggerheads with what you and your other mate are saying – that the $77m is just for the land/lease.
regardless, thanks tosh…
you prove that it ‘wasn’t just for the land/lease’ anyway, there is at least a loan involved too isn’t there?
ooh and compensation (and the build costs for the new exchange building, apparently, eh?)…rofl.
@Dean
you guys have to realise that the deal between Telstra and the QLD govt is a private contractual arrangement and is nobody’s business.
look at it this way: if Telstra built and sold the South Brisbane fibre access network to an independent operator, it would be sold as a brand new, undepreciated network and not as a 50yr old highly depreciated network.
the new owner operator would, in turn, set access charges to reflect the higher capital value of a brand new fibre network.
if your local Woolworths negotiated a rental reduction at your local shopping centre, do customers have a right to demand a share of the “gains” in the form of lower milk and bread prices? of course, not.
not a perfect analogy, just trying to illustrate the point that whatever went down between Telstra and the QLD govt is a private matter. no one has a “right” to demand a share of whatever “gains” resulted from that private arrangement.
Telstra is a private company with private equity and debtholders and NOT communal property! it’s a business and not a charitable organisation!
Yes, thanks, I’ve read the article. As I said before, I was just responding to the original comment that the $77 million “was for the land and lease expenses, had nothing to do with the actual fibre installation” when clearly there’s more to it than that.
Thanks for making me repeat myself for the third time.
Where do you think Telstra’s money comes from? Its customers’ subscription revenue.
Explain to me how this is different than the NBNCo paying for the NBN with subscriber revenue (not tax increases)?
Why would it be better to continue paying extortionate fees to Telstra in return for subpar service and laughably low quotas, where instead you could pay a government-run organization that will invest all that money back into the network?
Given Exetel’s NBN plans, it’s already been established prices will not increase on the NBN. So what is your defense for your anti-NBN crusade?
have a look in the whirlpool forum
internode and iinet both use Opticomm
iinet claims reason why they are charging higher prices is because Opticomm charges more then the nbn
the Opticomm gm replied to the iinet story and told the readers in whirlpool that is not true, his company is cheaper then nbn
so why isnt there is bigger fuss about internode and iinet not telling the straight truth
they use the wholesaler as an excuse to charge higher prices and hope thier customers believe them
but iinet and internode are being caught out on the Opticomm case
i wont be surprised if they are dodging the truth here
but that wont be reported because iinet and internode according to renai can do no wrong
It was only posted yesterday, give it time. Opticomm could easily be telling half truths themselves too. Seen a few arguements over who was responsible for slow Opticomm connections, ISP or Opticomm.
From publicly available information, Opticomm is cheaper then NBN
From publicly available information, from 4 self interested sources. Two say they are cheaper, two say they are more expensive. I am not willing to say they are cheaper or more expensive until I see real information. I won’t just pick a side because it suites what my political agenda.
here is the links
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1787792&p=4
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1788037&p=2#r35
come one renai get a explanation out of iinet and internode
I just love the fact that Simon has named these plans with an Oxymoron! LOL
Was that intentional to call them FAB when they are anything but? ROFL
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