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June 25, 2003
Return of the self-same
So the sale of Telstra is back on the agenda with lots of regional sweetners.
If you look back over Senator Alston's telecommunications policies you come to a quick conclusion. That Alston's polcies have created, and ensured, market dominance for Telstra. All the talk about competition was a con job. What has been created by Alson is a national telco infrastructure monopoly, and a Telco that routinely uses its market power to gain leverage and shut out its competitors.
Is not Foxtel a monopoly pay TV company?
And with downloads on ADSl limited to 1.5b it is not possible to use these network for video-based services. That effectively protects the Foxtel network inb which Telstra has an interest.
How is that good for consumers? It makes you suspect all the recent talk about freeing the media industry of its anchronistic regulatory shackles (ie., foreign and crossmedia ownership) to ensure greater competition in the media industry. The way the Howard Government does things is that it talks about competition---allowing the smaller media players to grow--- but it entrenches the oligopoly of Packer and Murdoch.
Here is a judgement on Senator's Alston's policies.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at June 25, 2003 10:57 AM
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