Canberrans confront Telstra over broadband hell

By Brett Winterford on Jul 20, 2010 6:56 AM
Filed under Telco/ISP

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CCC: Don't blame Telstra

Taylor was backed from an unlikely corner. David Forman, chief of the competitive carriers coalition, told the angry residents that Telstra's underinvestment was "completely understandable" for an incumbent telco, whose business model revolved around outlaying "the cheapest possible capital cost to deliver the minimum requirement of the day."

RIMs, Forman said, were the "technology of the day" when introduced.

"It was perfectly adequate to provide the service required by law," he said. "That and nothing more."

He also understands why Telstra won't invest more in the area.

"You can only retrofit this stuff so far. Gungahlin - you can do that, but it is not cost effective to pull out RIMs and build exchange buildings," he said.

Forman said it was the result of a broken competitive environment.

"A competitor chooses to invest in tomorrow's technology to win business," he said. "An incumbent will follow the demand and get a payback in the shortest possible time. It is a legitimate commercial choice."

Forman asked the residents to aim their fire at successive Governments - for creating a Telstra with retail and wholesale arms in 1991, right up to those that seek to block the passage of the Telstra split bill today.

"Get on the phone to any senator and tell them you want them to support the legislation stuck in the Senate to require the separation of Telstra's retail and wholesale businesses," he said. "You will benefit and everyone in the country will benefit."

Canberrans confront Telstra over broadband hell

8 comments in this discussion

"I blame the government, having lived in Gunghalin and been forced to use ISDN in the day as the only thing available at the time better than dialup, I lay the blame squarely with John Howard and ..."

By Mordd

Tags

gungahlin, rim, credit, adsl, shaping, telstra

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Comments: 8

btone Jul 20, 2010 8:14 AM	Well, quel surprise! Eagerly awaiting the spin from the Telstra fan (office) bois, come on down Syd. Oh yeah, its early morning, guess you will still be bunkered down with Thodey and the lads over lattes, croissants and 'economically justified' PR technology like pads and pencils.
Tom Brown Jul 20, 2010 9:55 AM	This is indicative of what Telstra sees as economic reality but if they did not provide the service contracted then they should give a full refund. How about a class action and a ACCC investigation and penalties for false advertising at the least. Telstra tried to kill the NBN from day 1, threats about cabling access and Greenfield estate bans if other providers were allowed access. If the next government allows Telstra to get their hooks into the NBN the NBN will be reduced to Telstra's lowest common denominator of economic reality.
cosmicharade Jul 20, 2010 9:57 AM	Didn't you read the last bit, commercially it makes no sense to charitably upgrade all of Gungahlin. A company director by law is required to do what is is in the best interest of the company, or that director could be turfed out, or worse. I completely support Telstra's position and think that bashing them endlessly has achieved nothing. Everyone loves to bash a corporation but forget it is government that needs to create a framework to attract investment, or extract the money from taxpayers to fund it, which may annoy non-affected tax payers, but this is precisely what is happening now with the NBN.
umbria Jul 20, 2010 11:57 AM	Advocates of Fibre to the Node please take note. This cautionary tale shows what will happen should FTTN bottlenecks be built when FTTH is what is required now and for the rest of this century. "Bashing", aka exposing greed and inadequate regulatory teeth, is perfectly legitimate when a monopoly infrastructure player has been allowed to hold an entire nation to ransom for a decade as it seeks to deliver only for its directors and shareholders without any social conscience.
Rossyduck Jul 20, 2010 12:38 PM	It is now a backhaul issue. Regardless of the access network, Telstra "bodged" RIM or previous century out-of-date NBN Co implementation of FttH, the backhaul will still be the problem. NBN Co have been very clear they will not provide the backhaul, that is up to the ISP's providing the services over the NBN Co network. As we have said in the past - lets rather spend a chunk of the $43 billion allocated to NBN Co to build the NBN on rather building backhaul.
ITrant Jul 20, 2010 1:30 PM	Advocates of Fibre to the Node please take note. This cautionary tale shows what will happen should FTTN bottlenecks be built when FTTH is what is required now and for the rest of this century. Just thought that should remain the top comment— Nobody replaces RIM with an exchange, that argument is specious. You replace older remote equipment with newer and more suitable remote equipment. This is not the government's fault. You can't legislate a private company to have a conscience if they have none to begin with. The only thing private companies listen to is their bottom line. If customers leave, they'll gain a conscience to win them back. A private company has failed to live up to its contractual obligations. It offered a service in an area it knew the service could not be delivered. It has known this for at least a decade! If you're not meeting your obligations to the customer, you offer credits as a stop gap until you fix the problem. There's no plan to fix the problem here. It's "too difficult". The lesson here is that the quick, cheap solution will cost you further down the road. And now it's time to pay that cost. RIMs were deployed a 'cable relief'. If cables were never properly 'relieved' (more capacity installed), you're going to get stuck with a bigger bill later on. That's the cost of the quick fix. And later on, is right NOW. Sadly, the only thing these customers can do is (use up their credits, then) cancel their Telstra service and go with someone else. Perhaps these customers can get together and negotiate a good deal with another supplier. An opportunity exists for another supplier to gain some enthusiastic customers. Telstra should not be allowed to advertise service as being available in these areas until the problem is fixed. Luxury or not (as if that argument made any sense), if people paid for the service, they should get that service.
sirdmz Jul 20, 2010 7:25 PM	The story understates the situation. Over here in south harrison. During Peak Time while it was raining (so everyone was staying home, line stats did not drop one bit), the speed would literally drop down to 23kbit/s down with latencies over 700ms and serious jitter. This is on a "rim"/"cmux". Now considering that I am paying for a 8mbit connection and telstra advertises it as being X times faster than dial-up... it seems that it is atleast misleading advertising. Telstra should be charged with fraud!.
Mordd Jul 21, 2010 9:40 PM	I blame the government, having lived in Gunghalin and been forced to use ISDN in the day as the only thing available at the time better than dialup, I lay the blame squarely with John Howard and the Liberals, we only have them to blame for the situation telstra is in today.