Australian TelCo Required To Grant Loop Access

David. H. Sims writes "Well as it seems Telstra, Australia's telephone monopoly has finally been recognized as one, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has forced Telstra to grant full local loop access to its competitors and to bring extensive testing to a halt and begin the mainstream ADSL rollout by August at the latest. If you don't live in Australia, Telstra is the only reason we're all stuck to poor modem speeds, Telstra owns all exchanges in Australia and is privatised and thus wouldn't open them to other companies so they could install the relevant ADSL equipment. As usual the full story's at NewsWire. I think I'll have my xDSL medium rare! :) "

Comments

You don't care, I don't care

[Jon Peterson]

"Well as it seem's Telstra, Australia's telephone monopoly has finally been recognized as one, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commision (ACCC) has forced Telstra to grant full local loop access to it's competitor's and to bring extensive testing to a halt and begin the mainstream ADSL rollout by August at the latest."

Timothy:

Your grammatical technique of carpet bombing apostrophes into the copy is not successful. "it's" means "it is". "competitor's" should not have the apostrophe because it is a plural. "seem's" should not have an apostrophe because that's simply not how you spell it.

Why am I wasting bandwidth and karma wingeing? Because this degree of laziness simply means that you can't be bothered to spell-check or double-check what you post. Why should 1000+ readers have to go to the effort of interpreting your version of English grammar just because you can't be bothered?

No, it's not a big deal but it is very annoying, not to say unprofessional. Typos and spelling are something of a feature on the Internet, but I expect better than that.

Ho hum.

So why not go VSAT

[Epeeist]

I work for a large UK organisation that has numerous branches in Africa. Putting cable in there is almost impossible, besides the distances the copper tends to get stolen.

So we use a VSAT service instead. For the amount of bandwidth we use it is extremely cost effective.

Re:How does it work there?

[newt]

Here in the UK you have to be within 10 miles of the local exchange in order for BT to consider you for ADSL. I would assume that this is for technical reasons, and would hold true in any country. So how does this work in Oz where the population density is low

We have more telephone exchanges.

Is it just cities and really large towns that will get the benfit of this?

That's another issue entirely. One of the big deals this year has been Telstra's performance in remote areas. There are some people out there in the middle of nowhere whose phone service is provided by 100 miles of copper and god knows how many amplifiers and repeaters, where the last ten miles are cable-tied to one of the bits of fencing wire by the side of the road on the dirt track which leads to their house. Expecting to be able to use modems over a line like that is fantasy, but the Government has declared that every household in Australia, no matter how remote, should be able to have access to high speed data.

Of course, since we're in Australia and our telco is fucked, "High Speed" means "64k" -- Yes, folks, ISDN is considered a premium, business-quality high speed data service here, and it costs about the same amount per month as a T1 over similar distances does in the US. Nevertheless, how are you going to get 64k down the copper strung along someone's fence?

Answer: You don't. Telstra has been a world leader in the use of alternative technologies, including satellite, spread-spectrum, and other forms of wireless communications. So that's what they're using.

In practice, this means that if you're in a remote-enough area, you might not have a local exchange at all, so expecting ADSL is a bit rich. Cities will get it first, major regional areas will get it next, and communities out in the middle of nowhere will get some mantra about "technical difficulties", which reall means, "We don't want to spend the cash necessary to outfit your pissant little local exchange with a DSLAM."

-----

Re:Telstra and the ADSL Problem

[newt]

What the hell are you talking about, mutnix? Just about everything you've said in this posting is crap (and believe me, I'm not fan of Telstra, so I'm not going to defend them without justification).

Yeesh!

-----

Can AU's Internet links handle DSL?

[cjsnell]

I remember back in '93 or so that Australia had banned online gaming and what not because it was saturating their external connections to Internet. I also remember that Australia's connection has always seemed pretty slow from a US user's perspective. Does AU have the external connectivity to support DSL when it finally happens for them? Have things improved?

Chris

Re:Can AU's Internet links handle DSL?

[The OPTiCIAN]

The Australian government hasn't banned online gambling. In fact a Senate select committee is currently looking into the issue.

The sentimaents of the committee chain (Ferris) and Communications Minister (Alston) at the moment seem to be that you can't kill the internet, so we should do it better than everyone else. In coming months we should get a framework with a high emphasis on consumer protection. At the moment there is a limit to what online casinos can be allowed, but this is part of a trial only.

Re:How does it work there?

[Psiren]

So I'm not worried about DSLs not reaching most of Australia. Very few of us live on farms in the outback, you know.

Heh! No, I didn't think you did. But I didn't realise the urbanisation was so high. Ah well, you learn something everyday...


Now weary traveller, rest your head. For just like me, you're utterly dead.

Re:Just like the UK

[The OPTiCIAN]

And I a Lenonist... of the McCartneyist variety...

Re:What's sad is that it's expected

[The OPTiCIAN]

I didn't agree with your sentiments. The problem is not Aboriginals as such, but entrenched urban poverty. Aboriginal issues are beaten around as a politial football. In South Australia we have a far left Labor Senator (Bolkus) who has built his career on making ethnic people scared and pretending to be their saviour. ("There are people out there who are going to hurt you, but stick with me, because I can protect you", etc). ATSIC itself is a really ineffective platform, because it is rigidly factionalised, and run for the political and financial gain of many of its bureaucrats. You should see the remote beach shacks the army has been made to build for some of the leaders as 'side jobs' to their work installing legitimate housing facilities up North. Nevertheless, unless something is done about entrenched poverty, poor education and health in disaffected, predominantly Aboriginal populations, it can only get worse. All will be labelled as useless as a group and it will be virtually impossible for any Aboriginal Australian to to get the opportunities needed to have a successful life. Thus their circumstances will perpetuate hatred toward their people.

But yes, the whole situation is pretty fucked. We're all paying for the sins of people who died a long time ago.

Just to deal with the issue of mandatory sentencing (not that you gave a view on it, but I just want to say this): this is another political football. Mandatory sentencing has been proven to have no positive effect on crime statistics. It has been rought in on the "Old women shouldn't feel threatened in their homes" line despite the fact that old women in their home are statistically less likely to be a victim of crime than any other element in society, and despite the fact that mondatory sentaning does nothing to decrease crime.

Living in Adelaide means I'm somewhat shielded compared to other parts of the country. Your experiences do sound pretty awful.

Re:It wasn't criminals it was poor people

[The OPTiCIAN]

We apologise for Neighbours. (It's not as though anybody watches it here anyway)

Re:This is great for us living in Western Australi

[The OPTiCIAN]

hehehe

Come to Adelaide! We've got the bandwidth, cheap hosting, low labour costs, a world class bomb-proof data-centre and some of the best cs courses in the country. ;)

Good luck Ozzies!

[Zen]

Monopolies have a nice way of dragging things out forever. Like new lawsuits, and preliminary injunctions. Right bastards, they are!

So, if Australia's internet traffic index is at 54/100 now, what are they going to be at in three months, providing that Telstra doesn't delay the inevitable?

typical

[Aussie]

Just after I decide go cable, sheez

But knowing Telstra, they will find some obscure reason to not provide it by August

Re:typical

[sjwt]

Oh come on..

They only jsut done somethign good about there cable modem prices.. they'll find some way to make it cost over $200 a month, have they ever charged a resnable rate for anything?

Split Telstra

[shirro]

I think Telstra should have been split before privatisation began. The local loop could have been sold of in regional parcels to produce something like the Baby Bells and the long distance business sold seperately.

At the moment Telstra legitimately uses some parts of its business to protect its interests elsewhere. This might have been largely overcome if the whole privitisation thing had been done better. Now half of the business has been sold we have lost the opportunity to partition it.

It is going to be in Telstra's interests to delay access to the local loop as long as possible to protect their long distance and data services. I wouldn't be surprised if they are delayed over all sorts of "technical difficulties"

I don't think all the woes of Australian coms are Telstra's fault. The government has to take most of the blame.

Re:Just like the UK

[mattbee]

BT has been experimenting with and promising ADSL for a long time. They are just getting a trial service under way with some ISPs. Those who have it say it works great, but roll-out of the trials has not been terribly successful. BT have just extended the trial time. It is widely suspected that they don't want people to have high speed net access because this will lose BT its lucrative leased line market (ISTR a 64kbit line costs £1,000/month).

I'm pretty sure you can get a 64k leased line from Pipex for about £4000 / year, so maybe this figure is wrong. But it doesn't change the fact that even if they do prostitute ET in their advertisements, we still won't think they're a cute furry company :-)

Re:It wasn't criminals it was poor people

[Gerund]

Don't overlook the fact that the potato famine was going on in Ireland as well. There were many people who preferred transportation to starvation, and many magistrates who were sympathetic to their plight.

The typical "History of Australia" you get in Australian high schools is in some ways as unrelated to reality as the "I cannot tell a lie" nonsense most US students are familiar with.

Conditions in the early Sydney colony were never as bad as you are frequently told they were. Not even under Admiral Bligh, who is presented as a drunkard and a fool. Sure, there was a lot of rum making the rounds, but you have to understand, this was a naval colony. In the English Navy, rum was as traditional as the lash.

As for the commonly touted "descended from convicts" garbage, I have this response. Australia was a penal colony for around seventy years. It was settled after England lost their old penal colony. Wanna guess what that old penal colony was? U...S...

Re:How does it work there?

[Gerund]

To say Australian population density is low is quite misleading. Whilst as a whole, population density is low, I agree, this fails to take into account the fact that Australia has ~85% urbanisation. That is to say, 85% of Australian citizens live in cities. That's actually 5% more than the US. I'm not sure what level of urbanistion England has.

So I'm not worried about DSLs not reaching most of Australia. Very few of us live on farms in the outback, you know.

A.D.S.L. = ADSL Deployment Slow and Lame

[mmerlin]

Telstra trialled ADSL in 1996 and the tech reports from the reviewers were ecstatic. They wanted deployment ASAP (source: Australian Telecommunications mag).

Management fat-asses sat on the techs big time. Since Telstra monopolise the telecom industry over here (especially back in 1996) and Telstra invested massively in ISDN, they decided to milk the lucrative ISDN market for as long as possible, at the expense of innovation.

A years or two ago the government ordered Telstra to offer ISDN at affordable rates. Pity the govt knew not much and thought ISDN equalled broadband. Aaah semantics. The simple exchange of the word "ISDN" for "Broadband" might have had a positive effect.

Well since September 1999 ADSL is finally available (kinda, sort of). So long as you are in the CBD you can now get it and pay roughly similar rates as ISDN for rental and equipment at the local exchange, plus the standard 19c/meg for your data.

Seems Telstra are not too keen to help smaller business get their hands on ADSL. I live/work 2.7 kms from the CBD. Technically I should be able to get ADSL to my place, but since there is a local exchange closer (and not in the CBD) I must wait (and wait....)

I have been waiting 5+ years for xDSL, thanks Telstra, I love you guys NOT!

Hope is in the air with wireless solutions, but I think the opening of the local loop great news! Soon as Optus or MCI or AAPT or any of the other newer companies on the scene (in the last few years) offers broadband at a decent price then Telstra can kiss this customer goodbye!

Re:Similar monopoly in New Zealand

[Stinger]

Telecom also offer a DSL service - but they are not the only business to do so. Paradise Net also offer it. I'm not sure how their arrangement works with Telecom but they have managed to get it for their customers.

Unfortunitely, the way Telecom have structured pricing is to ensure thier profits. The way ADSL works in NZ is that you get a ADSL line, and you pick a ISP (that supports ADSL). You can take your pick of a plan, 600mb, 1.5gb or 3gb then 25c/mb after that. BUT, the way the pricing is structured is that you pay that traffic charge to Telecom, and the poor ol' ISP only gets a $20/mo for thier trouble.

Re:This is great for us living in Western Australi

[thogard]

I can't surf the net from it yet but I do get plenty of Simpsons on foxtel.

Yes its true! Foxtel is very, very, very cosy with Telstra. For thouse Americans that read this, its the same foxtel that you know about....

Re:Similar monopoly in New Zealand

[Jason Pollock]

O.k. People tend to have several misconceptions about how the New Zealand market is working. I'll go through them 1 by 1.

0867, or tolled data calls. Telecom did this because of overloading in the local loop. They also did it because of the $$ they were having to pay to Clear to terminate data calls to Clear's ISP service. The agreement works like this:

You pay me 4c/minute for every call to someone on my network and vice-versa. Now, Clear doesn't go and offer much in the way of local service, so most of their calls are incoming. Lotsa cash. US ISP's turned CLECs are doing the same thing. This _really_ pisses off the incumbent carriers. That's why everyone wants to toll data calls differently. Especially in the US. Clear pulled one over on Telecom, and they made a lot of cash.

However, I agree that Telecom shouldn't have brought in a fee to make the switch. 0867 service is actually saving telecom money, so they should have passed the savings on, instead of raising the other fees.

Long distance competition:

Everyone and thier uncle offers long-distance. IHUG (an ISP) does over their backbone and sattelite data connections to the US. Clear does. Saturn does. There are many more small companies that do also.

Local competition:

Saturn has been rolling out in Wellington for a while now. They offer both cable-tv, cable-internet, and local phone. Telstra recently bought in to them (because Telecom bought into AAPT, an Australian carrier), so they will be ramping up and rolling out across the country soon.

The New Zealand phone market isn't doing bad for competition. There are some big problems though. The lack of a viable number portability (NP) solution would really open up the market, since local businesses wouldn't have to change their number in order to change carriers. However, as has been demonstrated in the US/Canada, this will never happen without legislation. If NP had been in the network, the move to an 0867 network could have been done without any of the customers really knowing about it, or caring.

People keep talking about keeping the wiring public property. However, all this does is result in the wiring not being upgraded as new technologies arrive. ADSL only works on good cabling, and only for short distances. However, if the wiring were public, there would be no incentive to upgrade to a fibre network to increase the distance/bandwidth of ADSL services. I have been told that this is what is happening in the UK. Since carriers don't own the local wiring, there is no incentive to invest money in it, or try new services. It is easier to sit back and earn the per-minute charges that everyone pays for local calls.

Jason Pollock

Re:This is great for us living in Western Australi

[SweenyTod]

TV is about all you'll get out of it. Mabye I should have been more specific. They have cable tv here in Perth, but not internet infrastructure to go with it, and have none planned in the future.

This is great for us living in Western Australia

[SweenyTod]

because at the moment, there are two companies suppling cable access in Australia, Telstra and Optus. Neither provide cable in Western Australia, and in fact, I've had Telstra sales reps say they have no plans in the future to bring them here either. Wonderful, not. I work for a software firm, and we need this bandwidth. Highspeed access here in WA is very expensive, and completly out of range for a home user. Both offer satalite access, but it's damn expensive. Optus quoted me $1500 for the dish, and on top of that, I need a normal internet connection.

I'm so sick of waiting for these two companies to get their act together. It's gotten to the point where I don't care what Telstra and Optus do in the future, they're not getting my business at any cost.

Telstra loses loop AND cable...

[goodie]

There is an article in the Australian Financial Review today about the Federal Court requiring Tel$tra to share its cable network with other players. http://www.afr.com.au/cont ent/000328/invest/invest1.html

About the local loop, bandwidth in Australia $ucks, but one small benefit is that when bandwidth is restricted you learn to use it more efficiently, for example making text based websites instead of littering them with graphics made of text.

i want to read the "condtions apply"

[burgatron]

What the bet that telstra will promise the world and end up giving us dirt. or like they have in the past give us the world unlimited acess and then take it back and force us to pay more... But good to see the ACCC doing something for us little ppl :]

www.burgatronics.net

Sydney at its best

Burgatronics

Telstra is not a monoploy!

[rent]

Telstra is not a monoploy! Competition between other australian telecomunication companies is fair, and closely monitored by an independent commission! Telstra does not own a 100% market share in anything!

All ppl on slashdot telling you otherwise must be smoking some crack..

Thank god!

[mnot]

I've been waiting for this for a long time now; it's going to change the Internet in Australia drastically. Telstra have been holding it back for too long.

Re:Other Telco's need to heed the message

[mabinogi]

ACTEW trialled Fibre To The Curb broadband service in Aranda last year.
The final copper segment is VDSL.....
It's called TransAct, and I believe the trial was a sucess, and they intend to go live sometime this year.

It's definitely something to look out for if you live in the ACT. And it'll happen regardless of what happens with Telstra.

there's more info at http://www.transact.actew.com.au

Re:Names - Don't forget Raster

[|bazop|]

and apparently we have the cheapest internet access in the world too! (go figure) i saw it on newswire.

Re:My $0.02 worth

[Cytlid]

A few years ago, the company I work for, Philips Broadband Networks, supplied Telstra with a ton of HFC and fiber equipment. Perhaps now their competitors should get on the phone and see what we have to offer in the way of newer products that might give them a better edge.

Re:about time

[Xenex]

Oh, and the USA is just full of good news, eg: Kids shooting each other...

I don't think the people of the USA quite relise that the rest of the world FEARS becoming like the USA... whenever violent stuff happens here, and in many other places, it is compared to the USA...

Look at your own good news first before slagging off other countries about theirs....

Re:about time

[Xenex]

And American beer tastes like tap water. And they've got dumb accents and they're all descended from rebels, and they slaughtered thousands of innocent indians, or maybe that was the brits?

There you go....

Names - Don't forget Raster

[Xenex]

And Rasterman of Enlightenment fame is Australia too (well WAS :)...

We have claim on the best (IMOH) WM too :)

Re:Sad, but only to be expected.

[linux_penguin]

Thank you

I was on my way home, thinking I had been a bit harsh. On the train some fuckhead (doped out on something, moving in slow motion) tried to lift my girlfriends mobile phone out of her bag.

Come here, pay 49% tax, watch the govt piss it down the drain, and then tell me Im crazy.

Time for a change, its time for the good people to reclaim the world. I know we exist. We've put up with this shit too fucking long.

Re:Sad, but only to be expected.

[linux_penguin]

Yeh, aboriginals' worst problem is what to do with the millions of dollars they are screwing out of Mining companies and the government (ie, my taxes) just for being black. At least a lot of the African-Americans can stand up and be counted as a proud, hard-working, decent citizens. Abos cant even fucking stand up... their dole goes on booze.

Im sick to fucking death of feeling uneasy in my hometown because of 14 yr abos on the train with knives (who I quite often overhear talking about 'going stealing'), and yet some stupid fucking asshole asks everyone (including recently the queen!) to apologise to these incidious little fucknuts for something that happened 200 years ago and none of us participated in. Also, even tho they were nomads, suddenly they are claiming fucking vast amounts of mining land and the most expensive residential areas of my city (ie right next to the river, they're even claiming an old brewery for christ's sake) as 'sacred' land....

Fuck the lot of them... Unfortunately the australian govt has screwed me over so many times I cant even own a gun anymore to shoot the bastards. And if a white man goes a black man with a baseball bat while fending off a buglary, the white man undoubtedly spends more time in prison.... they whole system is fucked up.

This might all seem unreasonable to you, but come and live where I do, and have your house broken into by a group of dirty 13 yr old, petrol sniffing abos who shit on your carpet, and then come and tell me Im being racist. Even if they catch the bastards, the are in and out of prison like fucking yoyos, because it seems our laws dont apply to them (or maybe 'Im black' is a valid excuse). For christ's sake, in the Northern Territory the blacks are soo stupid they dont even understand what 'mandatory sentencing' means... they continue stealing shit and then whinge when they finally get locked up. Or they hang themselves (at least they proved themselves successful at something) and then we have to sit thru another million dollar,tax-payer funded, royal commission into Aboriginal deaths.

I was gonna post this anon, but fuck it, Im sick of it all..

Re:What's sad is that it's expected

[linux_penguin]

*All will be labelled as useless as a group and it will be virtually impossible for any Aboriginal Australian to to get the opportunities needed to have a successful life.*

pure crap. Every human being controls their own destiny. Aboriginals have just as much opportunity as I do, if not more (more money under Abstudy etc). Nothing is stopping them bettering themselves. Christ, I had a white high school english teacher who's family used to squat in abandoned buildings... My father didnt own a pair of shoes until the age of 10.

The main problem is this: the english came here and took over. We are continually apologising and trying to 'make up' for it. The aboriginals cry that they are second class citizens, and we give them more money. Well, the reason a person usually feels second class is because they dont have the balls to get up and go do something about it. An person often feels inferior because they are.

Here's the deal. Aboriginals are a dominated race. White people had the guns, kicked their asses and took over. Nothing will change that... Aboriginals just need to *get over it*. I have nothing to apologise for. If they dont like it, tough. If they think white australia owes them something, tough. Life's not always easy, but sitting around thinking the world owes you something just because youre black doesnt solve anything. If my great, great grandfather was killed by an Aboriginal, does this mean I have some sort of claim? ofcourse not, its ridiculous.

Re:Just like the UK

[grolim13]

The Australian equivalent of Oftel is Austel (website: www.austel.gov.au:80). They set the regulations of what equipment is allowed to be connected to the phone lines (all of our phones have "AUSTEL APPROVED PERMIT" on the bottom).

In addition to this, Austel regulates the prices (= stops Telstra from overcharging) and also assigns phone numbers.

ntl: lease me 64k for 96 quid

[DrSkwid]

it's 200 if i want an internet gateway but as i'm an isp I've got a 2mb link at the office.
i've got 64kbps isdn over centrex (no call charges) connected to my office.
BT sux
.oO0Oo.

It wasn't criminals it was poor people

[DrSkwid]

during that time "real" criminals were hung.

In Nottingham the decision as to whether you went to Australia or not was whether you stole less or more than a shilling. More than a shilling and it was off to the gallows, less and it was off to the boats.

Either way the reality was a peasant holocaust.

Successive governments have successfully washed over it with the penal colony crap but it was really an efficient way of clearing out the overpopulated inner cities after the farming land was cleared by the increasingly powerful land owners.

To use the popular misconception of criminality is a major travesty to those who were transported. Think most survived the trip?

The goverment officials that went with them were generally not of the highest calibre either. The dregs of the army/navy in charge of the poorest and most downtrodden members of society.

A fucking tragedy that virtually no-ones knows or cares about 200 years later.

So it wasn't based on just the genocide of the indigenous population (an attribute that virtually *every* human settlement shares anyway) but a more sinister and evil basis.

My personal visit to (western) Australia gave me the impression that it's pretty socially fskd-up anyway. Many people I met were openly racist and sexist. It was like visiting one of the films I'd seen from Alabama in the 50s.

.oO0Oo.

Re:How does it work there?

[Gossy]

Where did you get this 10 mile figure from? I don't recall them ever mentioning this..

Timescales?

[blane.bramble]

Have they given any timescales for unbundling the local loop? BT have been dragging their heels in the UK, claiming they can't unbundle it any faster. Would be interesting to see how an almost identical situation pans out in Australia.

Another Solution to Telstra's Monopoly.

[luckykaa]

Didn't the US government split Bell into lots of smaller companies? How well did this work? Could the same be done for Telco? (And British Telecom too, as well as a lot of other national privatised monopolies)

Re:This is great for us living in Western Australi

[sstrick]

I live in Perth and I have Telstra cable. It's not in all areas yet and they don't have cable modems out at the moment but they do at least have the infrastructure there.

I can't surf the net from it yet but I do get plenty of Simpsons on foxtel.

Re:When Will They Learn?

[Colvin Burgess]

The age of "community" data access is coming. The cost of providing data services is still high, but if it is spread out over a large user base and people do not paying AUS$50 per month (committed for at least 36months to cover install costs), then this may very well be a reality. Internet data still costs ISPs between 9-19c per MB. This means that 200MB costs the provider around AUS$40. Local data should IMHO be covered by the line rental. With IP "enabled" Telcos this would include local phone calls, faxes, game playing, video, etc. and gateways for international and interstate could be used which would attract a slight surcharge on a per Mb basis. I know that this model will be applied by AirNet Commercial Australia - a soon to be announced Telco.

Re:I was fed up, so I co-founded a carrier.

[Cy Burdock]

Unfortunately, satellite traffic is expensive compared to land line traffic when both
alternatives are available. And it has a high latency rate of around 350ms which makes voice
rather delayed. Although I agree it makes a lot of sense in areas unreachable by land lines it
also reduces the local infrastructure. i.e less effort is made to connect areas that should
really be connected by land lines. An example would be the UK if it had not had chance
to deploy its land line infrastructure - we would now see Manchester, Birmingham and London
connected by satellite links rather than the much more sensible (for the situation) land line links.

Re:The Better Solution to Telstra's Monopoly.

[Jacques Chester]

That network - bequeathed to Telstra for free - was paid for by the Australian taxpayer, an investment of billions.

Hang on a minute, you can't sell something twice. At present (AIUI) Telestra is a government-owned telco. The government hasn't given away the infrastructure, its just packaged up a bit of itself and called that package Telestra. Telestra will then be sold, and at that point the government gets the money.

What I'm saying is this: Telstra owns the network. Telstra is being sold. Hence, control of the network will fall out of public hands into the hands of a private monopoly.

What I meant by "giving away" is this: Telstra could not afford that network on its own. Australia is an enormous, enormous continent; our fiber backbone is world-class but cost hideous dollars to lay. Nobody, bar nobody could have justified such an investment in a purely commercial sense. There just aren't enough users to make it profitable to spend billions of dollars to link the capital cities with fiber.

The bill for this network was not footed by Telstra. It was footed by the Commonwealth of Australia - ie, the taxpayers. Telstra is inheriting it from the old Telecom monopoly as-is, for nothing.

be well;

JC

--

Re:Sad, but only to be expected.

[CyberChrist]

isn't the tax rate around 30%?
well, thats what I pay AFTER claiming the tax free threshold. Or maybe i'm just dumb.....

Seriously though, I didn't have much of a take on the whole thing until i travelled from melbourne to ipswich a couple of times and walked from our motel to the local bottle shop at 10:30 and was accosted by a few aboriginal chicks with chrome paint in coke bottles between their tits, wanting cigarettes.

Not wanting said chicks to blow up spontaneously, I claimed i didn't have any.

The experience has repeated itself a few times since then. I dunno, tho, i'm more inclined to take a slightly more humanitarian view on the whole thing. But i guess you can't help a population where the majority is used to feeling hard done by and has lost sight of themselves.

Ah well, them's the breaks. In melbourne, you trade chroming aboriginals for smack-addicted minority groups. Don't know what's sadder.

- CyberChrist

Re:OzDSL petition

[lazybeam]

>Here is the URL:
>http://www.ozdsl.net/dsl/petition.pl

That was actually linked with:

http://www.geocities.com/perl_on_amiga/

Copy and Paste got:
Document not found
The requested document /dsl/petition.pl was not found on this server. This could be for a variety of reasons, including: ...[snip]

What have you got to say about that?

Re:about time

[dirtmerchant]

No shit america is fucked up. i'll be the first one to admit that. all i meant by my statement, was the shitload of censorship related internet stories lately. Lighten up.

Re:about time

[georgie_boy]

Am I the only one who likes beer?

Telstra and the ADSL Problem

[mutnix]

I love it..... we've been wating for something like this for a long time!!!! One problem though...... Here in Adelaide, we have major bandwidth problems!!!!! From one exchange to the next I beliveve we can barely cope with 75% of the population and its at 3k at best. In other words "4K bits" per sec. at 40K - 52K our stablility drops dramaticly. on a bad night you'll be lucky to remain connected for an hour at best at speeds above 50K. We have cirtain suburbs here localy that even have what we call"pair gain"(2 people per copper pair") This now limits internet connections to 28K at best, and as low as 16k!!!! Telstra now need to upgrade all of our exchanges not only to DSL and ADSL but need more fibre links between exchanges and "MUCH" larger frames into city central. Believe me.... I'm just as !@#$%^ off as anyone else. I work for an ISP and I have to do support and try to help our "end users" to understand that it's not our fault that they get kicked after "10 MINS" on a bad night!!!!!

what is cool and not cool in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm under the impression that DSL isn't that cool in Great Britain.

Good point. So what is cool in the UK...?

• Fruity accents
• The Dole
• Acting like a pansy
• Being sodomized by men in black robes and powdered wigs
• Her Majesty's Sagging Tits
• Those dumb palace guards who have to stand still
• Homosexual activities of all kinds, including sodomy, felching, oral sex, glory holes, gay orgies, and football
• Oppressing the Irish
• Stupid governments
• Mr. Bean

And what else, besides privacy, isn't cool in the UK?

• Sunlight
• Going to the dentist
• Braces (as in orthodontics, not suspenders)
• Being a bloody fag-mooch
• Americans
• Personal hygeine of any kind
• Cold beer

Now wasn't that educational?

WHAT?! This story is about AUSTRALIA?! Well, that changes everything!

Good, but...

[Wakko Warner]

How do you maintain the network? More tax dollars? Right now, Telstra, through their customer-gouging prices (I've friends who've dealt with Bigpond $0.25 per-megabyte bandwidth charges, for instance) manages to keep the infrastructure running and up-to-date. Putting it back in the hands of the government means you've got to stretch your tax dollar even more. (Didn't Australia just institute a GST? Network upkeep costs could mean even more taxes.)

Just something to think about...

- A.P.
--

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

Re:Good, but...

[Jacques Chester]

How do you maintain the network? More tax dollars?

As I understand it, Telstra is fully self-sufficient and profitable. Being half-owned by the government, it happens to be a source of positive revenue.

You would logically pump cash from your bandwidth bonds back into the network in a maintainence function. I never said this would be free, I just said that leaving the network in the hands of a private monopoly was a little risky.

Right now, Telstra, through their customer-gouging prices (I've friends who've dealt with Bigpond $0.25 per-megabyte bandwidth charges, for instance) manages to keep the infrastructure running and up-to-date.

Telstra's eye-gouging prices have nothing to do with costs, and everything to do with profits. Telstra could run a 30c flat-rate long distance scheme tomorrow, at no loss. They won't, of course. Nobody else in the market can beat the monopoly at their own game - if you look into it you will find that some of Telstra's prices are already set by the government.

Besides, Telstra is quite flush with cash. They announced a record profit only recently - I think it was 2 or 4 billion Australian dollars. To put this in perspective, 4 billion dollars is 1% of the Australian GDP. And that's profit - revenue after costs.

Putting it back in the hands of the government means you've got to stretch your tax dollar even more.

Telstra is still majority-owned by the government. And, as I pointed out, it turns a profit. There is no tax-stretching to be done.

be well;

JC.

--

Re:How does it work there?

[Tet]

So how does this work in Oz where the population density is low.

Actually, it's not that low, at least, not if you ignore the middle of the country which is basically empty anyway. The vast majority of Australians live in one of the major cities (off the top of my head: Sidney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Canbera). Admittedly, for a city of only 3 million people, Melbourne occupies a huge amount of space, but the chances of not being within 10 miles of a local exchange are fairly slim. Of course, the rural areas are always going to lose out...

How does it work there?

[Psiren]

Here in the UK you have to be within 10 miles of the local exchange in order for BT to consider you for ADSL. I would assume that this is for technical reasons, and would hold true in any country. So how does this work in Oz where the population density is low. Is it just cities and really large towns that will get the benfit of this? Just interested...

Now weary traveller, rest your head. For just like me, you're utterly dead.

Re:How does it work there?

[redback]

the thing is with the population density of aus is that there is high density in metro areas and extremy low density in other areas, i think as high as 1 person to 100sq km!!

Re:How does it work there?

[thogard]

Most people in Australia live on the coat. With 16,000 miles of coast line where would you live?

The population and size of Victoria (where I live now) is very close to that of Missouri (where I lived before). Victoria has one major city (Melbourne) and three minor ones. Missouri has two major cities (Stl, KC) and 2 minor ones.

Outside of Victoria things tend to get quite sparse. Western Australia is mostly empty and the Northern Territory is so big with so few people it out sources some of its government. It has a population density about 1/3 of Alaska and is about 5/6 of the size.

The population is 18,783,551 (if you trust the CIA fact book) which puts in about the same as New York. New South Wales (where Sydney is) has more people than the state of Washington in 4 times as much area but only 1/4 of that is used.

Melbourne is one of the worlds largest cities as far as area. My map of the greater Melbourne area covers about 100x100 km (60x60 miles). Its spread out like much Tulsa and Indianapolis are but with unexplained over priced land but a useful public transport system.

Re:The Better Solution to Telstra's Monopoly.

[Paul Johnson]

That network - bequeathed to Telstra for free - was paid for by the Australian taxpayer, an investment of billions.

Hang on a minute, you can't sell something twice. At present (AIUI) Telestra is a government-owned telco. The government hasn't given away the infrastructure, its just packaged up a bit of itself and called that package Telestra. Telestra will then be sold, and at that point the government gets the money.

We issue - quarterly, say - "bandwidth bonds". A bandwidth bond entitles the holder to a certain percentage of network carrying capacity over a certain time period.

Thats an interesting idea. The problem is going to be in administering it. What happens when everybody wants to use their bandwidth over one link? Sell off bandiwdth over particular links as individual commodities? Maybe. Take a look at what Band-X are doing with this on international routes.

Paul.

When Will They Learn?

[Chasuk]

If self-evident monopolies (or even companies only percieved as monopolies, but perhaps not technical monopolies within the definitions of law) had better publicists, they would certainly not make the same enormous mistakes again and again, in virtually every country in the Western world.
I mean, what PR person worth his bonus wouldn't say: _You have zillions of dollars and control so much of industry X that a certain percentage of the population will see you as villains, so we need to work on your image a bit. How about offering superior, inexpensive service BEFORE the competition, so that our customers actually LIKE us, albeit grudgingly?_

Jeez, I just said it, and I'm not a PR person. Seriously, how come it isn't obvious to every non-cretin in this digital world that the first companies to offer cheap broadband access (perhaps combined with content) will control that world, perhaps forever? I can even apply this to the US: If AT&T tomorrow offered broadband access to 90% of America for $25 monthly, and this $25 included telephone access, AT&T would own Internet access in America.

But I seem to remember that the Aussie government has recently been on this censorship binge, as well. Hmm. I'll revise my AT&T fantasy: $25 unlimited broadband/telephone access with guanteed anonymity and webspace unfettered by any restrictions other than those absolutely required by law or common sense (i.e., kiddie porn, incitement to violence, etc.).

Is it really that hard for companies to figure out that people want their freedom, and that there is an enormous profit to be made by providing them that freedom? That the Internet has become THE important avenue of freedom of expression?

Clue time

[Tau Zero]

f) (City Unknown) Michigan, 1997: A 14 yr. old white girl is pistol whipped and shot in the face by a gang of six adult black males. One of her friends, a white teenage male, is murdered by a shot to the head. Another teenage white male is shot in the head and survives. The teenage white girl is forced to fellate the adult black males. None of the adult black male perpetrators are given the death penalty.

That's because Michigan doesn't allow the death penalty. Duh.
--

Similar monopoly in New Zealand

[BigTed]

During the privatisation in the early 80's (where it seemed the entire world was watching our small country suddenly turn from the most socialist "western country" to the most free-market) our own State Owned Telephone company was sold off to Ameritech and one of the Bells (can never remember which ;-).

As part of this, certain agreements were made in regards to future activities of the company:

• Under the Kiwishare agreement, local calls would all be free - this has now been broken with Telecom NZ charging 2c per minute for local calls if they are Data to an ISP which is not a problem if you use Telecom as your ISP (incidently New Zealand's largest ISP). This is getting some major attention from the New Zealand Commerce Commission at the moment.
• The toll's system would be open to competition. This has in fact happened and Clear Communications have been running as competition for some years now. Albeit as the biggest Telecom customer as they rent the lines of Telecom.

To get a little more on topic :-) Telecom also offer a DSL service - but they are not the only business to do so. Paradise Net also offer it. I'm not sure how their arrangement works with Telecom but they have managed to get it for their customers.

woohoo!!

[linux_penguin]

I want ADSL, and I only live 500m from an exchange!!! woohooo!!!!

Ofcourse, knowing Australia ISPs and Telco's, it will be some massive $$$s for non-permanent connections, and permanent connections will require you to sell your first 4 children.

Now, ofcourse, I only have until September to get my Linux/Apache/mod-SSL/mod-PHP box going :)

Re:Just like the UK

[Yaruar]

Things have changed though with our prime minister Tony Blair having signed with the EU that the deregulation of the Local loop will now happen 6 months ahead of the proposed date.

Suffice to say this has put the backs of the Regulators and BT out of joint slightly.

Re:Exactly & think of the economies of scale.

[DABANSHEE]

One of the great benefits of a goverment statutary authority operating a public utility monopoly is the economies of scale. After all say if you had 3 private phone companies sharing 90% of the market, all 3 would have to run a full nationwide network, with fixed costs no less than if just one telecom had 100% of the market. With public utilities its economies of scales that keeps cost to a minimum in the long run. Imagine the economies of scale if instead of having 3 GSM networks (Telstra, Optus & Vodafone) there was just one network. Imagine what the cost saving would be from just having one set of antennas per cell, rather than the 3 we have now - triplercation of resources is a waste we all pay for. Plus any net profits go back into the goverment treasury, thereby subsidising the tax payer. As any businesman would know, if a business owned telstra it would definitly not make any sense for them to sell the company off, so why should the goverment sell it off. Really the only reason the conservatives are privatising Telstra is idealology, as it definitly doesn't make economic or financial sense - Telstra has been making billions in net profits for years. Plus, by being goverment owned there are political consequences if they charge too much, ie the politicians might get voted out. So politicians in their self interest will keep prices low. The fact is many people think phone prices on average have gone down since deregulation, however if you reserch the facts, the opposite is true, relative to what it should be now. Its just too many people beleive the PR bull about privatisation etc. Really by world standards phone prices are quite low here, You wouldnt beleive what phone bills are like in Europe. Even though untimed local calls are A22c (US14c), may seem dearer than in parts of the US where local calls are free, actually many of those local phone areas are no bigger than a couple of suburbs. For instance if you were to make a call from one side of greater LA to the other side, you could be going through at least a couple of phone districts, so therefore you'd end up paying quite a bit more than you would down here in Sydney. Where I can dial a suburb 20 miles away & talk for 5 hours & its an untimed local call & as such will only cost me A22c (US14c).

Re:The Better Solution to Telstra's Monopoly.

[Anonymous Coward]

>To bring you yankees, poms, euros and others up
>to speed, the Australian federal government is
>hell-bent on selling Telstra in order to help pay
>off some of the national debt.

Yes, that and to help brake these sorts of monopolies held by Telstra.

>This has already led to a great deal of >controversy.

<most of it motivated by socialists who still believe the banks should be nationalised>

>Telstra has been accused of reducing
>services to remote areas, and of predatory, >monopolistic practices.

For at least twenty years.

>The solution offered is a system of regulations,
>laws, and fines. IMO, this is stupid. There is a >much simpler and more elegant solution.
>
>One: Keep the hardware.
>Two: Sell the rest.

This is what has been done. There is an industry oversight body called Austel which allows equal access to all telecommunications players. I agree the system is overregulated, but you're rwong to imply the government has parted with the hardware.

>The Network is the source of Telstra's monopoly >power.

Not really. These country services were one of the last bastions of their monopoly. All that they have now is incumbancy, and their ability to delay court cases for as long as possible.

>It owns the Australian phone network, top to >bottom.

No! This is crap! Rate this idiot down. This is just plain wrong. They do not own, or control acces to the hardware as you call it. RATE THIS GUY DOWN.

>Competition in Australian telcos roughly boils >down to who can pay Telstra more.

DOWN DOWN DOWN - his facts are wrong

>That network - bequeathed to Telstra for free -
>was paid for by the Australian taxpayer,

BZT! Wrong!

>an investment of billions.

BZT! Telstra don't own it.

>But because the network has already been paid
>for (by us), Telstra gets it "for free".

All telecoms get access to it, and none get it free.

>I say that we keep the network and sell the rest
>of Telstra. Sell its customers, support centres,
>business ventures and staff; but keep the part
>*we* paid for.

I can see you're one of the men behind coalition policy in the lead up to the 1996 federal election. Four years ago? What?
>So how do we manage this network, if we keep it?
>
> We turn to the market to handle it.

I smell karma whoring...

<lots of snipage>

>This also means that firms can buy their own
>capacity directly. ISPs, businesses with large
>phone and data networks ... hell, even a street >of people could get together and form an
>access co-operative. All possible with a working >bandwidth market.

This is as the system has been since deregulation.

>The sale of Telstra is going to create more and
>more of these legalistic, top-heavy solutions.
>This is why we need to take away Telstra's >monopoly basis.

No, it will lead to less. In the transition period it's worse, but it will lighten off over time. Once other players are nicely entrenched (and we're getting close). The biggest probglem with Telstra as it is is that it's a political football. We need a telecommunications sector where there is enough competition to guarentee reasonable service at a reasonable cost. Telstra has never delivered that because regardless of how many stupid tricks regulators have tried to keep it honest, it has still managed to be inefficient and at the time of deregulatoin was a very powerful monopoly.

amien@bemail.org

My $0.02 worth

[McLaLa]

There seem to be two issues raised here by the ACCC the launching of a Wholesale ADSL which is great if you are a business or have LOTS of money to spend on internet access. The launching of a retail ADSL "around the same time" in Telstra speak means sometime in the next decade.

However I don't see this as the biggest gain from this announcement as all users of the Telstra Cable Modem service will agree the pricing structure that Telstra will likely employ as a monopoly will be so high as to be restrictive. Remember the Charging fiasco of recent times. The real gain for the Australian net community is the access to the local loop for Telstra's competition.

Historically in the Australian Teleco industry it is almost impossible for ANYONE to compete with Telstra on a country wide scale. This being directly related to the fact that Australia is a BIG place. Sydney to Perth is what 4,000 km(?) and there is not all that much in that space. The major competitor to Telstra Cable & Wireless Optus is still suffering from massive costs incurred in both building a fiber network that covers lots of the country as well as covering the cost of buying out the other half of a joint venture that went bankrupt trying to install an HFC network only in Aus larger cities Optus Vision. Yes I hear all you Australian's saying there the same company . . . well they are NOW after CWO payed $400 million to buy out it's other parteners to stop liquidation.

The way I see it is that Australians need need to have more of the community efforts like those that are going on in Canberra and I see now other centres in Aus like this one where communities get together to set up wireless or other types of networks.

Just like the UK

[Paul Johnson]

It sounds like Oz is in a similar situation to us. Here we have a privatised telco, BT. In fact AFAIK it was the first privatised telco, since Mrs Thatcher started the craze with it. But thats another story.

Anyway, there are a number of smaller telcos who need you to dial prefix codes for long distance, and cable TV companies who also provide phone service and are starting to add cable modems.

On top of this we have Oftel, the telecoms regulator. They are mainly concerned with preventing BT from squashing any of the minnows. Their long-term goal is to nurture the competition to the extent that they no longer have to set BT's prices. Getting new technology into place is a secondary goal.

BT has been experimenting with and promising ADSL for a long time. They are just getting a trial service under way with some ISPs. Those who have it say it works great, but roll-out of the trials has not been terribly successful. BT have just extended the trial time. It is widely suspected that they don't want people to have high speed net access because this will lose BT its lucrative leased line market (ISTR a 64kbit line costs £1,000/month).

Oftel have commanded that BT open up their local loops by the middle of next year. At that point things should start moving.

Paul.

Other Telco's need to heed the message

[buitoni]

I recently moved to Canberra, and was informed that cable modem access was not available, due to the fact that all our cables are underground. Telstra told me that the cost would have been prohibitive, and Cable and Wireless Optus (Australia's number 2) had no plans at all. That left net users in Canberra, and other areas with no options for broadband.

This news will be treated with much hesitation. Telstra has been "trialling" xDSL for several years, only to commence another trial once one is complete.

Australian net users deserve better treatment. We are not a technological backwater. With names such as Tridge(samba) and Rusty(ipchains), both living in Canberra & contributing much to the open source movement, we are a nation governed (for the moment) by a bunch of techno-phobic conservatives.

An end to censorship!

I was fed up, so I co-founded a carrier.

[Colvin Burgess]

Even though Telstra has to allow 3rd party Telcos to place equipment in their exchanges they are still allowed to charge a reasonable fee. Access to the exchanges is also limited. We have requested to have broadband wireless access to the Adelaide exchange and the response was "We don't do radio". Which was very interesting considering that a massive multi-storey antenna resides on top of the exchange we want access to.

DSL will be great, for the people who will be able to have access to it. My understanding is that Telstra will offer it as a premium service and is limited to a first come first served basis.

This also does not answer many needs remote regional areas have for high speed data access.

The Australian Government is working very hard to facilitate telecommunication growth. The company I work for (AirNet Commercial Australia P/L)is about to launch its services which could be used as an alternative to DSL: broadband wireless access. Link speed can range from 115Kbps to 155Mbps - it is up to the user (and their budget). Each link plugs straight into an IP public packet switched network. "Local" IP traffic is free (great for gamers) with latency of around 2-6ms.

This service will be available in each major city and in regional areas via satellite up/down links.

In a nutshell: DSL has much to offer, but there will be other fantastic alternatives available very soon.

If you are interested to know more, please contact me privately. Colvin Burgess - email:colvinb@airnet.com.au

Australia is not alone

[Yenya]

It is interesting to see that the monopoly in the telecommunications and problems related to it is the same problem in the post-communist country such as Czech Republic as it is in relatively rich country - Australia.

We in the Czech republic have the monopoly in the voice calls held by the Czech Telecom, the only voice calls operator here (not including the cell phones). The market in the data connections has been de-monopolized for a while, and this of course caused the rapid lowering of prices of the data connections (leased lines, frame relay etc).

The monopoly in the area of the voice calls still lasts here. The monopoly guaranteed by law was expected to end by the end of this year, but the government moved the factical end of the monopoly two years further by proposing the change of the law. The only purpose of this was to increase the value of the Czech Telecom (the only voice calls operator here, not including cell phones), because they want to sell it. The bad thing is that this increase of the value is in fact paid by customers of the Czech Telecom.

-Yenya
--

The Better Solution to Telstra's Monopoly.

[Jacques Chester]

To bring you yankees, poms, euros and others up to speed, the Australian federal government is hell-bent on selling Telstra in order to help pay off some of the national debt.

This has already led to a great deal of controversy. Telstra has been accused of reducing services to remote areas, and of predatory, monopolistic practices. The solution offered is a system of regulations, laws, and fines. IMO, this is stupid. There is a much simpler and more elegant solution.

One: Keep the hardware.
Two: Sell the rest.

The Network is the source of Telstra's monopoly power. It owns the Australian phone network, top to bottom. Competition in Australian telcos roughly boils down to who can pay Telstra more.

That network - bequeathed to Telstra for free - was paid for by the Australian taxpayer, an investment of billions. Telstra could not afford to pay to build that network itself. Nor could any company on an "expected returns" basis. But because the network has already been paid for (by us), Telstra gets it "for free".

I say that we keep the network and sell the rest of Telstra. Sell its customers, support centres, business ventures and staff; but keep the part *we* paid for.

So how do we manage this network, if we keep it?

We turn to the market to handle it.

We have, say, x Gigabits of data capacity inherent in the network. I note that the Australian system, once you hit an exchange, is fully digital. Voice and data are all the same thing.

We issue - quarterly, say - "bandwidth bonds". A bandwidth bond entitles the holder to a certain percentage of network carrying capacity over a certain time period.

To prevent speculatory activity, you'll need a rudimentary registration to enter the market. After that, anyone may buy, sell or trade units amongst themselves. This means that Telcos need not buy bandwidth from Telstra at inflated prices in rigid blocks, they buy exactly as they need. They need more? Buy some off the market. Bought too much? Sell back your excess capacity.

This also means that firms can buy their own capacity directly. ISPs, businesses with large phone and data networks ... hell, even a street of people could get together and form an access co-operative. All possible with a working bandwidth market.

The sale of Telstra is going to create more and more of these legalistic, top-heavy solutions. This is why we need to take away Telstra's monopoly basis.

Well, that's my two Australian cents, anyhow :)

be well;

JC. (note that USYD is a .edu)

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