Telstra: The breakup
Leaving out the problems and fights I have had with Telstra over the years, they are really NOT responsible for the state of telecommunications in Australia – our elected luddites in Canberra are.
When the Australian Communications and Media Authority was formed, way back in the mists of time, they asked for public submissions – and I sent them one that was soundly ignored. Only NOW do they realise that I was right.
What I said, in essence, was that the ACMA should remove from the responsibility of Telstra all infrastructure – exchanges, lines, cabling, DSLAMs, etc. Everything. Take all that lot with their associated technical, development and maintenance staff and bring them under the auspices of the ACMA directly.
Telstra, the core telephony and internet business, should have been relegated to the role of a content provider, buying time on the network in the same manner and at the same rate as the Optuses, Vodafones and 3’s of this country. THEN you would have some real competition for the benefit of the consumer.
Let me give you an example who. Telstra wholesale ADSL services to a number of ISPs in Australia – I believe they also now wholesale ADSL2+ to a more limited number as well, but let’s stick with the base ADLS(1) services for the moment.
My ISP (let’s call them X) purchases ADSL at wholesale from Telstra, and sells me an 8192/384 connection with 36Gb day / 54Gb night data limits for $75/month. providing I do nothing illegal (pirating movies, etc. etc.) I have complete control over that connection. I can run my own servers, or not as I see fit. And if I go over the limit in any one month (as I did last month due to some new Linux releases being downloaded), I pay the princely and affordable sum of $3/Gb.
Telstra Bigpond (and let’s remember they “buy” bandwidth from Telstra Wholesale at, arguably, the same rate as X) will charge me currently $79.95 for a whopping 12Gb of data (yes, I’m being sarcastic), and shape me to 64k if I go over that, making my connection useless for anything other than basic email (the Bigpond site tells me that is also for a 1500/256 Liberty plan – although in the almost-impossible-to-read fine print it does mention 8000/384).
It’s bad enough having to be shaped, which I find makes the service useless, but Telstra have the GALL to charge $0.15/Mb for data over my limit – that equates to $150/Gb – FOR THE SAME DATA I CURRENTLY PAY $3/Gb for !
So who is making the bigger profit at the expense of the consumer, most of which, it must be said, are less than computer literate and probably don’t realise they’re being screwed ?
Until inequities like this, and don’t think of getting me started about their 3G pricing, are resolved and brought down to a managable level, Telstra will suffer from the reputation it currently enjoys.
Jon