What to do About Australian Telecommunications?

alc asks: "In Australia there is a fairly interesting debate going on about communications. The market has been open to competition for a few years, so we have the cheapest rates seen.. well, ever. The problem with this, however, is that while competition on prices has been going on service has dropped significantly and the questions of equality have come up. If you are as far away as a 4 hour drive west of a major centre as Sydney it takes up to 2 weeks to get a new line connected or repaired, whilst in the city, next day service is almost commonplace. This means that a large number of Australians are being left behind in the so-called Internet Age. Half the problem is, how do we get Internet Access to them? Cable is definatley not viable. There is only cable layed in parts of the highly populated East Coast. Dial-Up access, which is the present solution is plagued by STD charges (there isnt always a PoP close by) and shocking line quality. Sattelite/Wireless seems like an option but its speed is only one way and it dosnt have good latency. This means that interactive content like video conferencing isnt viable. On top of this we have the government wanting to sell of the rest (51%) of our national telco, saying that service in the bush will improve under privitisation.. yeh right. What do you think needs to be done to bring the rest of Australia's population up to speed?"