Where is the Opposition’s Broadband vision?
There are several elements in the Opposition’s Broadband Plan that could be used to advance the broadband process. However, it lacks a vision and a strategy for the future. It is like having many parts of a car spread out on the floor, with no plan on how to put it all together.
When it was in government the Coalition produced 12 plans over a period of 11 years and as a result Australia ended up on the bottom rung of the international broadband ladder. And we were also given Sol Trujillo, who was more than happy to exploit the mess that the inept government policies of the time had made of the telecoms market.
It appears that the current plan will simply take us back to 2007 – in fact, even perhaps a bit further back than that, since at that time the then Minister for Communications, Helen Coonan, indicated that the structural separation of Telstra was on her agenda if the Coalition was elected. It now looks as though that is no longer on the agenda and that Telstra will once more be put in charge of the telecoms policies for this country.
That would basically mean going back to an FttN plan, a choice that everybody else in the world is now rejecting. I wonder if Telstra will be happy with this – to be honest, I don’t think so. It is now far more visionary than the Opposition.
For more than a decade the Coalition tried to create facilities-based competition and failed. It doesn’t make sense to compete on infrastructure. The services that are delivered over that infrastructure are what matters for competition. How is the Opposition going to achieve this by simply reverting to the failed policies of the past?
In the technology section of the Opposition’s policies – again a lot of confusion. Yes, the current old technologies can be used as a bridge to the future, but as everybody else in the world acknowledges the future is FttH. That is the reality, and who is going to invest in old technologies if no vision and no strategy exists for the end game? These old technologies can certainly be given a place within the whole, but they can’t be used on their own. The current plan will not deliver the security investors need to put their money on the table.
The fibre backhaul plan is certainly a good policy – also something that was discussed as far back as 2006 – but it needs to be placed within a total plan; otherwise investors will, again, be reluctant to come to the party.
Another indication of the lack of vision is the remark that people don’t need high-speed broadband now. That might be true, but we are already seeing health organisations in Australia talking about using the e-health identifier legislation and the NBN to start developing plans for e-health services such as monitoring elderly people in their homes (Aged Care Association of Australia).
The Education Department is building e-education projects around the country; and the electricity utilities are talking to NBN Co about combining forces in relation to smart grids and the NBN.
That is what I call vision.
Where is the vision from the Opposition in all of this? Shouldn’t they be leading the way? How are they going to address some of the social and economic problems that we are facing, not just in Australia but internationally?
If the OECD, the World Bank, the UN, the Obama Government, the European Union and many others are all talking about the enormous economic benefits of a trans-sector vision of broadband as national infrastructure, why does the Opposition believe that this is not a good idea for Australia?
I have no issue with talking about how to get there – and some of the elements of the Opposition’s policy could well fit into that – but without a road map, without a vision, we are simply thrown back into the endless discussions and debates we had when they were last in power.
Paul Budde
Tagged in: Australia, Broadband, FttH, National Broadband Network, NBN
August 10th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
“seems to me” that the Libs (opposition party) has not changed one iota or revised why or whether they should change their outlook from the Howard era – I am assuming The Big End In Town has also been talking to them and they want to run (for a fat profit) any broadband revision. The Libs do not seem to realise that the NBN Co is just that – a big business in itself not a government department. What a fiasco!
Andy Hope
August 10th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
The coalition broadband policy is a disappointment, but perhaps not the end of the world, and could certainly use a better front man.
With the Nationals, Greens and Labor all wanting fibre we may even be able to hope for some additional fibre to premises in the first coalition term, particularly in areas adjacent to committed mainland fibre trial sites.
So, how does it compare to Labor’s NBN?
Well, the satellite component is there, wireless will be delivered to some regional areas that would have seen NBN wireless, and $3 billion is there for fibre backhaul upgrades.
Yes, it’s stupid not to take this opportunity to acquire the infrastructure (both for social equity reasons and as an ongoing source of wholesale revenue to government). But recall that the NBN was also going to lease, not buy, access to Telstra infrastructure, though it would commission the building of some of its own fibre. It really makes public ownership harder to achieve in the long run, though.
But the biggest clunker is ‘upgrading DSL’. DSLAMs are capped at 20 Mbps which quickly fades over the copper, dying out after 5-6 km. Likewise FTTN is just a fibre extension cord to a street pillar, then more copper-based ADSL. This accounts for about $1.5 billion of public money, but is the only really short-sighted stop-gap. In five years no-one will want to be trapped behind a FTTN bottleneck, the equivalent of 1990s RIMs.
But it is a first-term policy in a frugal climate, and we can hope that the fibre rollout to premises will resume when the coffers are restored. The only over-building required later on will be bypassing the ADSL and some privately built HFC, so we do get about $4 billion worth of the NBN in the first coalition term.
We will also have Labor, Greens and Nationals combined to advocate regional fibre to premises and public ownership of socially needed infrastructure, so all is not lost. And Paul, your continued advocacy is critical, too.
I score it 6 out of 10, and probably just good enough to stop folks voting the current clowns back in. Could have been better, though.
August 11th, 2010 at 7:22 am
Paul, your comments are, as would be expected, sensible and factual. I do agree that the Smith/Robb explanation of the Opposition Broadband policy was disjointed and amateurish. Surely Turnbull or Fletcher would present the case with more intelligence than those chosen.
I would suggest that if Abbott were to become Prime Minister next week he call upon the real experts in the industry, Optus and Telstra to present a strategy that would deliver Australians acceptable broadband at a price Australians can afford.