Minor parties keen to talk on Telstra deal

By Brett Winterford on Jun 23, 2010 6:58 AM
Filed under Telco/ISP

Willing to do their own deals.

Australia's minor political parties are all ears for the Rudd Government's plan to spend $11 billion on an NBN deal with Telstra.

On Monday, the Greens said they were "encouraged by the announcement" that Telstra and NBN Co had achieved a starting point for negotiations.

"This agreement heads off an expensive and protracted conflict between Telstra and the Australian Government which would have led to wasteful duplication of resources," said Greens Senator Scott Ludlam.

"The Greens will carefully scrutinise the details of today's announcement," he said. "The Government should now bring the Telstra legislation back to the Parliament so that it can be debated."

Right wing party Family First, meanwhile, is "reassessing its position on the [Telstra split] legislation" to see "what bearing the deal has on the legislation."

In November 2009, Family First Senator Steve Fielding told iTnews that he felt the bill forcing Telstra to split was a "gun to Telstra's head."

Fielding told iTnews today that he would now "take time in considering the $11 billion deal before making any decisions on legislation before parliament.

"The $11 billion deal proves Family First was right not to rush through legislation that would have forced Telstra into a fire sale - which would have seen thousands of mum and dad investors ripped-off," Senator Fielding said.

A spokesman for independent Senator Nick Xenophon said the South Australian Senator will "continue to push for the structural separation of Telstra, even more so now the [NBN Co] deal has been done.

"We'll be seeking more information from the Communications Minister," he said.

Told you so

The Greens used the opportunity to remind the major parties of why they opposed the privatisation of Telstra.

The deal "may be a significant step along the way to undoing some of the damage that was done when we privatised the national telecommunications carrier," Senator Ludlam said, referring to the three-tranche sale of Telstra.

Minor parties keen to talk on Telstra deal

7 comments in this discussion

"'"FttN would not work, because the copper "won't be there"', Clearly we would keep it around for a little longer in the last mile. Instead of up to 10km lengths from an exchange, you would only ..."

By MerariSchroeder

Tags

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Comments: 7

sydneyla Jun 23, 2010 8:59 AM	With the wasteful ways of the Rudd Government now being questioned it might be an opportune time to re-employ the FTTN vision of Sol Trujillo which Telstra suggested to the Howard Government some time ago. The savings to the Australian taxpayer would be gigantic with a super fast broadband service delivered to the Australian people.
MerariSchroeder Jun 23, 2010 10:16 AM	I would like to see a cost benefit analysis of FTTH, FTTN and LTE Wholesale. If FTTN is 1/3 of the cost of FTTH, then we would be able to still get 100Mbps and for less risk. FTTH would be able to be built out from a FTTN network over time as needed, keeping the peak debt much lower, meaning lower costs for consumers, higher takeup and a better success rate.
EMwyres Jun 23, 2010 11:35 AM	Two points. Firstly, MarariSchroeder - if Telstra were to decommission the copper network (and this now seems likely), FttN would not work, because the copper "won't be there" to run the so-called "last mile" from the node to the premise. Building FttN now, and extending later might cost less short term, but the later expansion to FttP will cost a lot more than if we did it in one hit now. I would also question the ability to reach 100Mbps for 90% of Australian's over a FttN/ADSL-last-mile solution. Secondly, I would question the objectivity of Senator Fielding in regards to Telstra, given that both he and his brother have held positions within Telstra, given rise to potential conflicts of interest.
umbria Jun 23, 2010 12:11 PM	Copper ADSL speed fades but FTTN ADSL also fades with distance from the node. For suburbia and regional Australia this means you spend an awful lot of money on FTTN but only get a marginal speed gain. LTE suffers from atmospheric variability and still needs fibre backhaul and the construction of thousands more power-hungry towers that no-one wants in their backyard. Fibre to premises is the technological endgame, and it is only a question of when we will get on with the job. Fibre has no speed limit, is the most reliable infrastructure, and only needs to be laid once.
ITrant Jun 23, 2010 5:59 PM	Governments of both right wing flavours put decades into changing the corporate culture of Telstra from a service organisation to profit hungry beast. No fiddling at the edges will undo that in 2010. No profit motivated organisation is going to invest serious money laying fibre if the government is going to let its competitors use that fibre. Hence the stalemate between the only company with the skills and experience to lay the fibre and the government wanting to encourage competition. Rudd is trying to create another government telco because private telcos don't work in the best interest of all, only themselves. I say 'trying' because Rudd is relying on selfish players to achieve an altruistic goal. Not going to happen. Fibre is the future, but don't kid yourself all fibre is the same and you only need to lay it once. Fibre dates faster than copper, it's just that we've reached the limits of copper. ADSL2+ speeds over a hundred year old technology is not too shabby. Can't see fibre lasting a hundred years. Fibre is expensive to lay and telcos will be expecting big returns on fibre-anywhere-near-the-home, so open your wallets ladies and gentlemen.
Pilotyoda Jun 23, 2010 8:11 PM	@ITrant you are right in paras 1&2. That is why the Govt wants the NBN as a public job, but having spent taxpayers dollars (up to $40B) doing what private companies can't/won't do, we should not then sell it off (with/without a discount) after we have done the hard work. And the separation deal simply isn't quite the same as re-nationalizing the package. (or at least the infrastructure. That would be cheaper than the current nonsence and there is still time to recover the expertise lost during the privatisation process (but not a lot) I disagree with you on the last bit, though It would be a rare piece of copper cable that is more than 50 years old as routine maintenance would replace all the copper over time and the new cable performs better than the old stuff. The same with fibre, with reduced connection/adaption costs. Also, as with the move from dial-up to ADSL to ADSL2+, as long as the the fibre is OK, we will get performance gains from new end-point hardware (modems, muxes, SLAM equipment, servers, etc) as it is developed (more's law applies here as well). If, in 5 years, or so, you want a bit more speed, you can upgrade the end-point hardware quite cheaply. Replacing a fibre in the street in 10-25 years because of failure (unlikely) or a backhoe cut it (more likely) would be cheaper than replacing a copper multicore. Cheers!
MerariSchroeder Jun 24, 2010 9:08 AM	'"FttN would not work, because the copper "won't be there"', Clearly we would keep it around for a little longer in the last mile. Instead of up to 10km lengths from an exchange, you would only have up to 1km lengths from a node. "Building FttN now, and extending later might cost less short term, but the later expansion to FttP will cost a lot more than if we did it in one hit now" - That's right it may cost say an extra half billion, but the total cost isn't the issue. The issue is of debt, cash-flow and solvency. A $15bn FTTN NBN for example would basically allow customers to access 100Mbps for half the price, meaning greater uptake and a lower risk of insolvency. "I would also question the ability to reach 100Mbps for 90% of Australian's over a FttN/ADSL-last-mile solution." - First of all it would be a FTTN/VDSL solution, second of all it doesn't make it harder to reach 90%. Remember the government required something like 98% in the original RFP. Nodes would also mean you would have less fibre in the long run and you would also have the ability to to build an active optical network (rather than passive). "Copper ADSL speed fades but FTTN ADSL also fades with distance from the node. For suburbia and regional Australia this means you spend an awful lot of money on FTTN but only get a marginal speed gain." - an FTTN would obviously use VDSL2, which can reach higher than 100Mbps on a single copper pair up to 1km, decaying to ADSL2+ speeds beyond that. And with nodes covering each 1km, everyone would have 100Mbps speeds, and with the cheaper price tag, they would get those speeds at a much reduced cost - or NBNCo could still charge the same rates, pay off the debt faster or save up for FTTH expansion.