Telecommunication Customer Service Worldwide

imin8r writes " Whirlpool writes that an Telstra, Australia's largest Telco (who also happens to own all wholesale access to ADSL in Australia), had rejected an ADSL user's application from a small ADSL provider, but subsequently accepted their own ADSL application from the same user. The funny thing is, the smaller ISP sells exactly the same service as Telstra as they are a Telstra reseller. Both providers use the same line, same exchange and same equipment. However, the story doesn't end there. When Telstra was approached by the aggrieved user explaining what had happened, Telstra offered him a settlement to keep quiet. When he didn't, they disconnected his already connected ADSL service. One of the arguments for Telstra's bad track record with customer service is the fact that they were previously government owned but are now partly privatised (and listed on the stock exchange). As a result they own a lot of the infrastructure which has been paid with by taxpayers money, but any new Telco players still need to use a lot of Telstra's infrastructure. I'd like to know whether full de-regulation of the telecommunication industry in the United States has benefited customer service and also what effect it has had on providing innovative services. "

Comments

Re:Before and After...

[Torinaga-Sama]

ain't that the truth, brother..

Deregulation

[Arandir]

I'd like to know whether full de-regulation of the telecommunication industry in the United States has benefited customer service and also what effect it has had on providing innovative services.

What "full de-regulation"? You must be talking about another United States.

I am all in favor of deregulation, but so much that is called "deregulation" nowadays is merely a loosening of the government's leash, and not it's removal. Government is a short-circuit in the marketplace. I will concede that at time the short-circuit may be necessary (police and fire services, etc), but you still cannot expect normal market dynamics when the government is involved.

In the beginning of the US Telco industry, the government granted AT&T a monopoly. Short-circuit number one. Realizing that a monopoly was not good, they compounded their error by regulating the monopoly. Short-circuit number two. Still having problems, they broke up the national monopoly into multiple regional monopolies, keeping the regulations intact. The short circuits were still there. Still later they finally performed their first partial act of real deregulation, and that was to allow competition for long distance service. Suddenly for the first time I started talking to helpful and considerate people when I had a problem! Suddenly I started to actually see my bills lower! But the industry as a whole is still regulated to a huge degree.

The core problem is that ownership of the lines is a monopoly originally granted by the government. Similar government grants of monopoly exist for local cable television providers. Remove this monopoly and you remove the justification for the regulations.

Is it expensive to lay down parallel phone lines next to already existing phone lines? You bet it is! So expensive that it's cheaper to pay to use the existing lines. But if that fee is high enough it WILL be cheaper to lay down duplicate lines. But in the current situation it is against the law to do so, so the local telcos charge up the wazoo for non-telco DSL providers. They've got the small guys over the barrel, with the government's blessings.

But there is no such thing as an ultimate monopoly. There are always alternatives. When the price of paying the monopoly gets too high people will look for alternatives. The price for Windows in the businessplace is too high, and Linux/BSD is making rapid inroads there. But the price isn't high enough yet in the home market so people are content to stick with Windows to write an email to Aunt Sally. Satellite TV competes with the cable monopoly. People are putting up solar panels to reduce their reliance on the monopoly power providers. In terms of internet access, you see the local telco monopoly competing with the local cable monopoly over internet services, and wireless is coming on the scene.