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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).
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
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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."
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).
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"?
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
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.