|
June 22, 2011
It's been a long time coming, but it does now look as if the $11 billion infrastructure-sharing agreement between the Gillard Government and Telstra is to be signed and announced very soon(probably this week). A Coalition government under Abbott would strongly consider throwing the NBN contracts out. They say no to a very significant economic reform.
Under the agreement, Telstra expects to receive $11 billion from taxpayers in return for gradually shutting down its copper wire network and sharing its underground ducts with NBN Co. Telstra expects to receive about $4.5 billion for transferring customers and about $4.5 billion for a long-term infrastructure leasing contract. By shutting down its copper and cable networks Telstra will effectively end its monopoly over the fixed communications network in Australia. NBN Co can now start speeding up its plans to roll out the NBN.
Creating a national high-speed broadband network and ending Telstra’s domination of fixed line telecommunications means that Telstra then runs a retail service only. Its management strategy is--and this has been so for a year or more -- to push better services, pricing and marketing to its contested retail customers. Its immediate strategy is to grab as many subscribers as possible in previously uneconomic areas by upgrading its copper wire street cabinets---remote integrated multiplexers (RIMs). It will then keep them as NBN customers as they are migrated to fibre.
This 'Top Hat ' project---the equipment upgrade sits atop the existing street cabinets--will enable Telstra to treble the number of available ADSL ports in the cabinets and so increase speeds from ADSL levels to ADSL2+ levels. The NBN will take ten years to be completed and the industry will still have to rely for a long time on these Telstra wholesale services.
Telstra's aim is to ensure that it is well placed in a digital future where Telstra, Internode, Optus, iiNet and others are all forced to buy their wholesale product at a uniform price, and to compete on customer service and the user experience.
As Paul Buddle highlights what we will see happen is a shift in the national economy towards a digital economy that will result in the development of e-health, digital media, e-education and so on. The NBN will create a new economic platform for a range of new businesses and indeed industries who can harness the enormous information processing power of the NBN.
|
the dreaded RIMS!