Slashdot Mirror
The Australian Broadband Disaster
David Gerard writes "Monopolies are bad, mmmkay? Robert Clark of TelecomAsia discusses the disaster that is broadband in Australia - its 2% takeup putting Australia behind such dynamic economies as Estonia. 'Telstra controls the local loop, is the largest mobile carrier with two digital networks, is the largest retail ISP, the largest wholesale data and Internet provider, and is a 50% shareholder in the biggest pay TV company.'"
For More Info on Australian broadband news you can go to http://whirlpool.net.au/ ----------- Off Topic I myself am having trouble with Ozemail aDSL. They say there is nothing wrong with my 1 - 3 second ping time (to ozemail.com.au) during peak times. They say if you can load a webpage in under 20 seconds nothing is wrong with it.
"You win again Gravity!" -Futurama (Zapp)
What is even more incredible than Telstras' monopoly in Australia is its plummeting share price. It has gone from around AU$8.50 in late 1999 to around AU$4.50 today. The monopoly and the resulting lack of cost efficient broadband would be easier to take if some people (especially all the Mums and Pops the government encouraged to invest when Telstra was privatised) had at least made some money out of it.
Over in New Zealand out monopoly is called Telecom NZ.
They have no bloody clue as well. Funny to see them them lose to Vodafone in the mobile phone market though.
I think the Southern Cross cable is just a myth and in this neck of the woods we connect to the US through "the message in a bottle method".
What is worse is that taxpayers own a majority stake in the company (in theory).
Just to make you feel worse, I've got 1.5Mbps/512Kbps ADSL (up/down) in Japan, and although I don't keep track of my bandwidth usage, I imagine I'd do somewhere around 1-3GB a day.
I pay about what you do.
The real problem is not so much the download cap as the horrific excess charges. My ISP (Pacific Internet) offers an entry-level ADSL plan (256/64 with 500MB of downloads) for $44.95 per month (US$30). Once you go over the 500MB, you are charged at 14.9c per MB - $149 per GB (US$100). That's a fairly typical charge across the industry.
Things have started to improve just recently. First, Comindico (through numerous resellers) have started to offer flat-rate ADSL. Second, Swiftel (directly and also through resellers) have started to offer plans with an excess charge of just $6 per GB - 25 times cheaper than the industry standard.
As others have mentioned, Whirlpool is the place to go for Broadband news in Oz. Most of it is bad, of course. Telstra is, not to put to fine a point on it, evil. Our federal communications minister, the benighted Senator Alston, is hopelessly ill-suited to the post. It's not all darkness, though.
...it provides heaps of motivation for
C
O
M
M
U
N
I
T
Y
Wireless Networks. And the government finds it pretty difficult to argue against them.
I couldn't read the article as it's /.ed (mirrors anyone?)
But my perspective as a broadband user in Australia...
Frankly, I don't see there's a big problem. I pay my money (which as much as I can tell is roughly in keeping with global prices), and get a reasonably good, fast connection. Yes, almost all broadband providers have download caps (typically around 1 - 4Gb/month), but that's not a problem for most people, just leeches mostly.
If you use Telstra for your broadband, you might get lousy customer service (as I did before I switched) but now I'm with a smaller provider (Internode) and quite happy with them. Good connections, good service, reasonable prices.
Why the take up is so low, I don't know (maybe the article does), but I've got it, it wasn't hard and I'm happy.
FYI, I pay $A80/month for a semi-high end plan which is roughly $US55. Basic plans start around $A50 - 60/month, perhaps even lower.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
A senate committee hearing is currently underway in Australia, which is invistgating Telstraâ(TM)s practices. Especially Broadband and the dominance over the local loop. (Last mile of copper from the exchange)
6 08 0.pdf
Just take a look at the transcription below to get a feel for the attitude this company has!
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/s
Comments like this from Telstra really make you laugh. (pg. 337)
There is an ADSL fetish that ADSL equals broadband. We do not believe that. We sell broadband services, and so we will try ISDN for those customers. That may be all they need, particularly if they are downloading stuff from the US, because ISDN is the maximum speed you will need to get stuff from the US.
Sad But true.
Area51 - We are watching...
the webserver seems to be grinding to a halt, so here's the article:
Australia's great broadband disaster
[by Robert Clark]
After a decade of political in-fighting over the ownership of Telstra, Australia faces the prospect of being a broadband desert. The incumbent needs to get out of cable TV - but first the government has to get out of denial
This is the story how a single mistake can turn into a multi-layered catastrophe. About how industry structure can drive government policy. About how the powerful will drive players in a market to their own ends. About how monopolies will thrive despite the most rigorous of regulators.
This then is the story of the great broadband disaster Down Under.
To a casual observer, it might seem an unlikely tale - Australia has been one of Asia's pioneers in telecom deregulation as well as in the adoption of new technology.
Australia introduced the first full service competition regime in the Asia-Pacific in 1992 and the first totally liberalized market in 1997. It boasts very respectable ownership rates for mobiles and PCs of around 70%, and around 60% for the Internet. It has far and away the strongest competition watchdog along with a well-resourced and experienced industry regulator. It has 600 ISPs, 80 long distance providers and four mobile operators, each of the latter with an international footprint.
As much as any other market in Asia-Pacific it has set the pace for telecom reform since the late 1980s.
Yet the story of Australian telecommunications in the decade since full competition began is that of a never-ending trench war between politicians, regulators, media magnates, new telcos and diverse groups ranging from farmers to pro-privatization lobbies.
More than anything else, they are arguing about the future of 50.1% government-owned Telstra - the country's biggest company, the most widely-held stock, the incumbent telco and the dominant cable company.
Yet amid the political thrust and parry, few have noticed that the industry structure has since lost the ability to deliver competitive outcomes.
No alternative
One long-standing Telstra critic is Professor Alan Fels, chairman of the national competition regulator the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), who describes Telstra as one of the world's "most horizontally and vertically integrated telecommunications companies."
It is Fels who points out that Telstra controls the local loop, is the largest mobile carrier with two digital networks, is the largest retail ISP, the largest wholesale data and Internet provider, and is a 50% shareholder in the biggest pay TV company.
And, almost uniquely in the world, it has been allowed to build a hybrid fiber coax (HFC) cable network which has been leased all but exclusively to its own pay TV company, a joint venture with the country's two most powerful media tycoons, Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer.
"In the local call services market competition has had very little impact," Fels says, adding that Telstra's competitors have virtually no alternative but to use the incumbent's network - even the main rival, Optus, relies heavily on the Telstra local loop.
"The clear message from this analysis is that Telstra has overwhelming dominance across the telecommunications market and in almost every segment of that market," Fels told an industry event in early March.
The impact of Telstra's sway in the market shows up most clearly in what has become the most critical aspect of the "last mile" - the growth of broadband.
The figures tell the story. With less than 2% of the population using a broadband connection, Australia now ranks 23rd on the global league table of broadband connectivity, behind 18 OECD countries as well as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Estonia. And it is sinking.
Ewan Sutherland, chief executive of the International Telecommunications Users' Group (INTUG), says that even if Telstra meets its target of 1 mil
@ASP.NET's parent-teacher meeting: "Little Johnny.NET is very bright, but he doesn't play well with others."
I've never seen an ISP in Canada that is unlimited, they all cap the bandwidth and charge unbelievably high prices.
Yes, Australia used to have unlimited broadband ... until Telstra decided to introduce 3GB caps (uploads and downloads included) effective immediately.
And to all those people that were on existing 12 month contracts? Tough luck, you had the option to either pay your contract out or sit on the service and do exciting broadband things like check your email and/or slashdot. Going over you limit incurred huge costs (some people accidentally ran into the 1000's of dollars in 1 month). They have held Australia back in this area, but alternatives have since appeared through local peering and Comindico http://www.comindico.com.au/ (which offer unlimited and respectable pricing, even if it is at a lil less performance).
Australia's big telcos (mostly Telstra) have long argued that the way they charge for extra downloads and uploads are not a problem for most broadband users... then today, their telecommunications watchdog announces that broadband complaints have skyrocketed, and most seem to be about the data charges...
The Telstra/Optus duopoly makes it impossible for smaller players to compete. I work for an MVNO, a smaller mobile phone network that effectively piggybacks the Optus GSM network. (Optus have their own mobile products so we are effectively partnering and competing at the same time -- what's wrong with this picture?)
Every time we offer a reasonably priced mobile plan that offers the consumer good value for money, both Optus AND telstra drop their pants, offering ludicrously underpriced products that we can't compete with. These cashed up bohemoths can afford to lose money to gain subscribers. We can't.
To try and understand why broadband access within Australia has only 2% take up, look at The sad fact is most of the cost in these plans is in the Telstra wholesale charges. Often accounting for 80% cost of the product, which mid you, doesn't include data. So the ISP has absolutely no room to move! Almost all of all the ADSL providers in Australia resell Telstra ADSL. There's no competition at the whoelsale level at all. Until we see some real competition in the broadband whole market, the prices will remain the same.
Area51 - We are watching...
Now you're confusing Finland and Estonia.
:D
Estonia is the "little brother of Finland" with most of its hi-tech industry and services originate from Finland. Not to mention all those drunken tourists in Tallinn
It is not surprising at all that they have a high uptake of DSL.
I believe the post was meaning the completely opposite. Estonia has relatively low uptake, unlike, say Finland.
I have at least 4 other ISPs here in WA (Western Australia) who offer unlimited downloads. The east should have even more options.
when Telstra charges 40+% more than everyone else and has unacceptable clauses, vote with your feet/wallet and dont use them.
the problem here lies in the fact that most ISPs have to use Telstras infrastructure in some form. Until this changes, telstra can essentially continue to charge what they want.
My ISP doesn't charge for excess data, but they 'shape' your traffic. Once you go over the limit (varies by account, 2GB peak + 2GB off peak for my 256/64) they cut your download speed down to about 72Kbps. Better than dialup, but slower than normal. And still free of charge.
The good thing though is that traffic from sources within their own network (nntp, their ftp mirrors, games servers, etc) and from ISPs that are connected with a peering agreement (they agree to carry each others traffic free of charge) is always at full speed, and doesn't count towards that quota.
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
Actually, you can get fixed-rate ADSL from quite a few provides - see Whirlpool for a list. Most will slow you down to modem speeds past the cap point, but at least you don't get whacked with thousand-dollar service bills.
Still, you can get ""unlimited" ADSL plans for as little as $65, e.g. from TPG. Only 256/64 Kb/s, and it can get pretty choked at peak times. It does exist, but it's a far, far cry from the unlimited cable I enjoyed in Canada for $40/month...
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Aren't all the drunken tourists in Tallinn Fins though? Where Estonia's services originate really doesn't mean much though does it? For what its worth Estonia seems to be fairly in line with technology out of proportion to the size of the place, better off than the boonies in Mississippi or something.
Well, over here in New Zealand, it's very similar -
All ADSL broadband is provided through the largest (ex-SOE) government-supported monopoly of a telecommunications company (Telecom). They charge the most ridiculous prices for ADSL and even mislead customers with the speed of the actual service (in a very cunning, but legal, way).
Yep, me too: real Ethernet to the home box. And now two companies here in Sweden are battling with VDSL offers: one with 10Mb/10Mb for about $35,and the other claims to offer up to 23Mb for about the same price! And our former monopoly Telia have no plans to do anything at this point.... on the contrary, they had plans to cap the traffic, or charge by the Mb, which no other company does here :D (not that I know of, anyway)
Meep.
Broadband is simply too expensive here in Australia for the majority of customers - that's why the takeup rate is so slow.
While living in Canada for the last 4 years, for about CDN$40/month (about AU$48/month, including the modem rental) I enjoyed unlimited high-speed cable internet. But when I moved back to Australia, I found that cable internet would cost about AU$65/month, plus the cost of the modem ($300 I think), with a 3 GB cap (including both uploaded and downloaded data). Any traffic beyond that was ~14c/MB. This was a lot better than before I left Australia 4 years ago ($65/month, $500 modem, 100 MB cap (yes, MB) and 33c/MB beyond that!), but still a big let down.
I ended up with a third-party (Internode) ADSL link at only 512/128 Kb/s for $99/month (and a $200 modem) which is uncapped, but prioritises me down the more I download (upload is unmetered).
I'm told the Canadian government ensures that broadband prices are kept at reasonable levels. The Australian government certainly doesn't. I was also told that Australia must pay for all traffic both to and from the US. 4 years ago, this was apparently about 12c/MB, and was the justification for the traffic caps and excess charges.However, these traffic charges are not only passed on to the consumer, they are also apply to everything - even Australian sites, and even if the content is cached by a local web proxy. Certain "popular" files may be mirrored for free by the ISP, if you're lucky.
It's not hard to see why Australian broadband costs so much, and why so few people can afford it.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I started using Telstra ADSL back before they started capping the bandwidth, and all I can say they are absolute shit.
When ringing them when the net is down, I had to wait at least 20 minutes before I got through, and when I did, they wouldn't help me because I wasn't using Windows, their USB-to-Ethernet converter, and my computer was plugged into a network. When I finally had reverted my network back to whatever they wanted, they finally started helping me, and the problem was on their end, as I already knew. Usually it takes around a day before it starts working again, and that's nowhere near satisfactory.
After endless hours of surfing, I found iiNet, a Perth-based ISP that offered 512/128, 6gb on peak and 6gb off peak for $79.95 AUD. Which was much better than the $100 we were paying for unrealiable 3gb. And if you go past the limit, you get 'shaped' to 72kbits, which is good enough for surfing. Plus, they have an extensive peering network, PIPE Networks, which include a large amount of ISPs and FTPs to grab latest trailers, etc., off.
But wait! There's more! iiNet has an unique way of counting your bandwidth limit. It adds up the last 30 days of usage, and if it goes over your limit, it starts shaping the next day. That means if you manage your download effectively, you can squeeze in 12gb of downloads easily. Only downside to iiNet, however, is you have to pay in blocks of three months.
Otherwise, iiNet is a great ISP to look at if you wanna get of Telstra.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
Do you have 1 - 3 second pings when you're doing nothing, absolutely nothing, on your link except a ping?
If so - yeah, something is FUBAR. Consider a traceroute to watch where the holdup actually it. It's quite likely a Telstra problem (remember, your ADSL is mostly Telstra no matter who you sign up with).
Here's what I see:
I can't believe all these ridiculous figures I'm reading from users in Oz, didn't anybody think of shopping around?
I'm with a smaller I.S.P. for my broadband here in Western Australia and the plans speak for themselves - reasonable monthly fees for realistic traffic levels (given the costs imposed on the I.S.P. by the carriers) - all a bloody sight better than what I'm reading for Telstra and Optus.
Monthly excess can either be charged or a soft cap imposed - but still at higher speeds than dial-up. The other good part of the smaller I.S.P. is you don't get the "customer rep." if you have to phone for tech. support, you get the guys who run the place and can solve the problems without having to R.T.F.M!
Anyone who goes with the big guys down here is a mug - shop around, ask around or just plain Google it, there's plenty of good deals out there to be had.
Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
That's not true that there was nothing you could do about it. They just made you believe that. We went onto the 12 month contract and 3 or 4 months into it, they introduced the cap.
Straight away, we rang them and demanded a refund. We sent our own emails, to them and the telecommunications ombudsman. We kept ringing, talking to people higher and higher up the chain.
If you were vocal and persistent, you could get something. We ended up with a full refund of the installation, plus our 3 or 4 months refunded too.
And besides, come to think of it, at no time were you made to pay out your contract. If you didn't want the service, all you had to do was ring them up and then send the modem back. Initially they offered to refund a prorata amount of the installation, but about a year later they sent the rest of the installation fee, too.
If you think broadband down under is a disaster, you should see our Digital TV situation.
Try Internode - they don't automatically slow you down when you go over your limit. They prioritise your speed according to other traffic at time. Things don't tend to slow down much even during busy times until you get well over 10GB per month.
NZ really only has one broadband option.
ADSL,put simply the plans are like this
128k up/down ADSL with a cap of between 5 and 12gb international data (internal NZ dont count)
or full speed ADSL with a 500 or 1000 mb cap.
its utter BS.
what i pay for 12gb of data, i could get at least 10mbit connection in sweeden.
life sux.
monopolys are bad.
And to all those people that were on existing 12 month contracts? Tough luck, you had the option to either pay your contract out or sit on the service
That's simply not true. Yes, you had the option of staying or leaving, but if you chose to leave, it was at no cost to you, and you had your install fees refunded. It's exactly what I did to get out.
Ray
I don't know why it's come to be like this, but I think it's a happy result of the IT-boom era. My ISP started years ago to dig real fibre to common households, and since IT was the main fad those days, they got all the money they needed. But they made clear from the beginning that they weren't expecting to make profit at least until five years later. I think they are starting to about now, but I'm not sure. But I'm sure they will in the not too distant future. And since that company has such a great offer, the other companies are forced to invest in better technologies, too. The only catch for the fibre option is that it's not available for single houses, at least not normally. And you have to connect all apartments in the house, but I think the initial investment cost isn't too high. After that, you're free to sign up for an account or not. You don't have to subscribe, you just have an ethernet socket in your apartment if you want to. And now they have the VDSL option for those who can't get fibre, so things are looking good :)
Meep.
Depends on your ISP. I am with iinet.net.au and I pay $79.95 for unlimited traffic (512k).
Most people who have a phone connection in Australia use Telstra. In the old days we used to get charged Line Rental. I assume this was for the use of the copper between your home and the exchange. If you get ADSL your ISP pays around $30 a month "line rental" for the same bit of copper you are already renting for your standard telephone. Take that off the price of most ADSL deals and your looking at a decent price for Broadband, ie paying for what you use. I haven't looked at my phone bill in great detail recently but I belive what used to read Line Rental is now referred to as a service charge.
I don't think there is anything special about Sweden, it's just that several companies got the idea that they should market Ethernet to the home, and it turns out it's not that much more expensive than DSL or cable. I'm surprised that no corporations in other countries have attempted to do the same.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
I absolutely love the television ads Comcast has been running during the ATT take-over period. The basic message is "Switch from satellite to Comcast cable, because we're local". Never to they mention customer support levels or superior product - only that they're local. Has me in hysertics every time I see it.
Unfortunately I'm a Comcast cable modem subscriber (it's the only high-speed option in my area), but I refuse to give up my DirecTv subscription even if it is costing me more per month than Comcast cable would. When I have a service issue with DirecTv they fix it on the spot. If there is a hardware problem *I* fix it - because it's my hardware. When you call Comcast/ATT support (when you can actually get through) they simply bounce you from one department to another hoping you'll give up and go away - after you've paid your monthly bill in full that is.
Have you any idea how much bandwidth in Australia costs? If you run a large company, and you want an Internet connection, you will be paying about 9c/Mb for international downloads. Sure this is cheaper then home, but this wasnâ(TM)t a 512kbps ADSL, it was a 155Mb OC-3.
Note that this was international traffic, not domestic. So if half of you downloads come from OS (actually pretty low for most users) you are effectively being charged 4.5c/Mb (US$30 / Gb). This is also assuming domestic downloads are free.
These costs may seem astronomical to people in the US, but when you research the economic relationship between Australian ISPs and US Tier 1 and 2 ISPs you begin to see why the costs are so high. This doesnâ(TM)t explain why service can be really bad for Australian ISPs, but it does go some way to explaining the costs.
Democracy isn't about no one telling you what to do. It's about everyone telling you what to do.