The great high speed broadband debate part II
I just saw Senate Question Time on TV and it just reinforced that the Minister for Communications does not get it. Her answer to the opposition question was pure political theatre it was all the Labour party will keep raiding the future fund for pie in sky ideas from their union mates till there is none left rhetoric. When it came to the Dorothy Dix question from her own party it was we have a proposal from Telstra for a national high speed broadband network (which Telstra have already said to the Australian Stock Exchange they will not build without major changes to the legislation), they will be getting a proposal from a consortium of other telecommunication companies soon and then went on to attack the opposition proposal.
The proposals from both Telstra and the consortium of other telecommunication companies both want major changes to the legislation, something the Government have said will not happen until 2009 at the earliest. They will only service the major cities at first and will require the building of two separate networks which will likely lock out any other players in the marketplace.
The advantages of the opposition proposal are a single network that anybody can access to provide services to almost every Australian, not those in the major cities.
Telstra will see the Labour proposal as a threat to it’s position as the primary provider of communications infrastructure in Australia will take action, this could be trying to inform people of the advantages of Telstra’s solution and/or moving it’s proposal forward. However, I can not see a network infrastructure create by a single or group of telecommunication provider/s for their own gain, providing the same level of service and opportunities as infrastructure provided by an organisation whose main role is to provide the infrastructure not services.