Australia & Politics & Tech 22 Mar 2007 02:14 pm
Plan for broadband
I’m a bit ambivalent about Labor’s plan for a funding a national broadband (FTTN) network with public funds. On one hand, I agree that Australia has a seriously antiquated communications network and that retail broadband services are way behind much of the developed world; some of that comes from the mix of the regulations placed on the telecommunications industry with the characteristics of the country (quite a few people living in very remote places). Telstra has rejected the idea of building a FTTN network due to the possibility (almost certainty) that there would be restrictions on the pricing it would be able to charge to allow competitors to have access to its network, and I can’t say I see a fault with Telstra’s argument.
On the other hand, I don’t like many of the (limited) details of the plan that came forward. The new network would work as a enforced monopolistic resource, with the possibility of Telstra (if it is not responsible for building the network) being forced to be a customer and prevented from building a competitive network. I can see why the Liberal Party would be against a plan like this, and it also rubs me the wrong way.
Worse than that, the idea of using money from the Future Fund to build the network is very, very bad (not to mention legally debatable). The Fund is money set aside for a specific purpose, and that does not include building infrastructure (or funding private companies building it); if they open the doors to use this money, I can see it being used for other ends in the future (and Labor has hinted that they plan to do it) and creating social security problems for the current employees of the public sector.
So, in principle, the idea is not that bad. The proposed implementation, though, is not very appealing; as always, the devil is in the details.
In any case, listening to politicians talking about megabytes per second in Parliament is highly entertaining.
