Cutting out the broadband middle man
Today the Australian government announced their intention to go ahead with building a national broadband infrastructure, themselves. Apparently none of the tenders were up to scratch. Including those from the big players like Optus. Telstra was dumped from the process a long time ago.
Theoretically this is a great move. I have long said that the government made a big mistake when they privatised Telstra. Effectively creating a private sector monopoly on telecommunications. The difference between a public and private sector monopoly is greed. Corporations by their very nature are greedy. When Telstra was privatised it should have been split up into retail and infrastructure. With infrastructure not only servicing Telstra retail but other players. Infrastructure would have remained a public service.
So what the government has just announced is effectively what should have been done 11 years ago. Hooray right? Now for the bad news.
The government has effectively cut out the middle man when it comes to implementing their Internet filter. Since they will control the wire they will also control the Internet. This is great for the government since cooperation from ISPs has been a problem all along. The ISPs have known all along that the filter stinks. It’s bad news for them and it’s bad news for their users. Telstra the largest ISP in the country refused to participate in any trials and during the initial round of trials a lot of the ISPs that did participate dropped out.
Part of the motivation for building this network seems to come from frustration over what the private sector can deliver but the conspiracy theory in me says that a lot of it has to do with pushing it’s paternalistic filtering agenda through. With one hand the government giveth and with the other it taketh away, our rights and liberties, anyway.
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actually, i liked this article. agree on many points.
the government and their censorship. there are many who think this is conspiracy theory territory. remember echelon? a system implemented in the 1960’s that was capable of filtering keywords spoken on telephone lines and intercepting faxes and other forms of communication. it been a reality for some time now.
i somewhat agree that infrastructure should have been separated from the retail part of telstra, but i can see why they didnt separate it. it would have lost alot of its sale value. and besides, private companies will build their own infrastructure anyway, regardless of whether the telstra network is there or not. ie, PIPE, foriegn DSLAM’s in exchanges, etc. if the infrastructure was a public entity, do you think it would be cheaper than it is now? definately not.and to boot, look whats happening now? the govennment is getting into the telecommunications business again. ill be very suprised if the government’s solution will be cost-effective. they have never been any good at keeping overheads low. it will be an interesting project, and knowing federal labor, a expensive farse.
(id like to be proven wrong on this one, i hope they somehow manage to pull it off…:):)
I dont have much faith in politicians. i must be getting old or something…
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