">My Big World Of Crap

Why is it that every time governments get involved in new technologies they manage to fuck things up?

Broadband internet is the latest in a string of debacles of government policy on technology. Remember pay TV, remember digital TV? Problem is that government policy is more concerned with protecting vested interests such as existing free to air broadcasters, rather than getting the best outcomes for consumers. The Department of Communications (and whatever else it has in its name this week) should just keep the fuck out of things and let the market figure things out.

Of course the other big deal for the government is protecting rural and regional interests. Why don’t they just let the players in the market do their thing and if they want to beef up what various parts of the country get that competition doesn’t provide naturally, contract with providers to have it done and pay them specifically to do it? Presently the cost of uneconomic services is buried in the prices everyone pays via cross subsidies …I think it would be better if these were taken out, I paid what it should cost me, and government explicitly subsidises services where they cannot be be provided either commercially viably or at a price that is tenable for consumers.

However, I’m not seeing much urgency to get broadband sorted out. According to Communications Minister Helen Coonan, city users should be happy with their current speed of broadband:

“That is very good technology and currently no one is complaining about the speeds of broadband in metropolitan areas,” she said.

Possibly right, although more likely is that people figure telling the Department is a waste of time. I have 1.5 mbps which is nicer than the 512 kbps I had until about 6 months ago. I think its expensive, at about $70 per month (my employer pays for it so price is not all that critical to me at the moment). When I look at some offers in other countries, its obvious we in Australia are paying over the odds for inferior service … for some examples, try these: Verizon (US) - $29.99/month for 3Mbps/768kbps with free wireless modem/router; BE Unlimited (UK) - $60/month for 24 mbps/1.3 mbps, unlimited downloads, free wireless modem; Singtel (Singapore) - $85/month for 25 mbps unlimited downloads and lots of freebies; KT (South Korea) - $52/month for 50 mbps/4 mbps. We are being seriously overcharged for what we get here.

Australian broadband speeds lag something like 5 years behind key countries we do business with, and nothing looks to be about to move too soon. Chances are we will fall even further off the pace.

Helen Coonan reckons:

“They ought to be (happy with their speeds) in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, certainly.

“They should be reasonably happy with their speed of broadband if they have ADSL II plus. There are nine providers that already provide these speeds, so it is available, it is competitive.

Nice of her to say what we should or shouldn’t be happy with.

I thought also her comments about Telstra were interesting, saying that current management had failed to understand Telstra’s role in the community:

“The importance of Telstra, the importance for the social fabric of this country for getting good telecommunications as against the return to shareholders seems to be the kind of approach that’s been a bit of an impediment,” she said.

Umm, Helen, return to shareholders is exactly what the management of Telstra is paid for. The stuff about social fabric and community service obligations is what the government is supposed to be worried about. Maybe these things should have been thought through better before your government partially privatised Telstra? (In saying this, my view has always been that government has no real business running a telco itself. Telstra should be fully privatised and the government should provide direct subsidies for either it to provide or to enable disadvantaged groups of consumers to pay for, services that are not in the telco’s best commercial interests. Far preferable to having hidden cross subsidies buried in prices of services.)

Technorati Tags: broadband, ADSL, ADSL 2+, Helen Coonan, Telstra, privatisation, cross subsidies, government policy, pay TV, digital TV

This entry was posted on Friday, August 11th, 2006 at 8:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.