The Hong Kong market was deregulated in the same way a few years ago (PCCW, the former Hong Kong Telecom, is forced to rent the local loop out at a price fixed by the regulator, OFTA [Disclaimer: PCCW is my employer, but the opinions expressed here are my own]).
I would say that the results in HK from a consumer perspective have been far more positive. Our prices for 3M ADSL as the incumbent telecom provider are around US$20/M due to competition; competitors are down around $12.
One reason for this is that Hong Kong is an easy place to provide DSL -- the city is so dense that nearly everyone is near an exchange.
I suspect the real reason, though, is that we have more serious regulators than in the U.S. or Australia. There is no doubt that the goal of OFTA is to introduce competition and reduce the market share of incumbents. When I was in the U.S. in recent years it seemed that theoretical competition was enough to satisfy regulators; they were remarkably unconcerned with the fact that providers other than the incumbents found it almost impossible to stay in business.
In Hong Kong we've had a similar technology for several years now. It's called the Octopus card and virtually everyone in the city has one. It can be used for payment on nearly all public transport and in stores where people make small purchases.
The EE Times article focuses on the technology is a bit light on details of what the card actually does, so I'm not sure if it is a stored-value card (like Octopus) or actually operates like a credit card. I would be surprised if it's the latter because of concerns about theft etc.
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I would say that the results in HK from a consumer perspective have been far more positive. Our prices for 3M ADSL as the incumbent telecom provider are around US$20/M due to competition; competitors are down around $12.
One reason for this is that Hong Kong is an easy place to provide DSL -- the city is so dense that nearly everyone is near an exchange.
I suspect the real reason, though, is that we have more serious regulators than in the U.S. or Australia. There is no doubt that the goal of OFTA is to introduce competition and reduce the market share of incumbents. When I was in the U.S. in recent years it seemed that theoretical competition was enough to satisfy regulators; they were remarkably unconcerned with the fact that providers other than the incumbents found it almost impossible to stay in business.
The EE Times article focuses on the technology is a bit light on details of what the card actually does, so I'm not sure if it is a stored-value card (like Octopus) or actually operates like a credit card. I would be surprised if it's the latter because of concerns about theft etc.
...we need to standardize the term "standard"?
No wonder we have so many problems!