NBN Rollout Scrapped

[NBNMyths]

Former Telstra executive Phil Burgess slams NBN

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/former-telstra-executive-phil-burgess-slams-nbn/story-e6frede3-1226077276035

HaHaHa. Phil Burgess. One of the three Amigos that did absolutely nothing for Telstra's customers during their overpaid, underachieving period at the top.

He's probably right about Telstra's "NBN" being cheaper than what we are getting. It was a fibre to the node proposal, which was torpedoed by the ACCC back in 2005 because they wouldn't accept Telstra's ridiculous terms, which were more about restoring their monopoly than improving the network. For example, Telstra proposed building the FTTN, and allowing competitors to access the 'last mile' of copper, but refuse them access to the new fibre portion of the rollout. So other ISPs would have to duplicate all the fibre to every node in order to access customers. Clearly a ludicrous concept designed to eliminate their competition by stranding them at the exchanges.

He's the same Phil Burgess who oversaw Telstra installing ADSL2+ DSLAMs into a thousand telephone exchanges, then refusing to activate them for almost 2 years because they didn't want to share with other ISPs.

Him and Sol were effectively responsible for the NBN we are now getting, because they refused to play the game, forcing the Govt to bypass them with FTTP.

Phil and his attitude is some of the best evidence of why we need a wholesale-only, open access government owned infrastructure monopoly as a base for communications services. Because when a private, vertically-integrated monopoly is calling the shots, you get the farce that is current Australian telecommunications.

 

[drsmith]

Phil and his attitude is some of the best evidence of why we need a wholesale-only, open access government owned infrastructure monopoly as a base for communications services.

Why does it have to be government owned, and why does it have to be a monolopy ?

 

[NBNMyths]

Why does it have to be government owned, and why does it have to be a monolopy ?

Because the private sector is more interested in making a profit than delivering a service. I firmly believe that 'essential' services such as water, power, transport should be delivered by Government, because the private sector consistently demonstrate that they only build/upgrade the most profitable area. Which is perfectly understandable from their monetary perspective. The HFC rollout of the 90s is a good example.

I would alternatively accept private sector ownership IF there was a universal service obligation attached, and a mandate for open-access, wholesale only. Unfortunately, as Phil Burgess demonstrated, the private sector isn't very interested in such rules.

...

Because communication cables are a natural monopoly. It is a tremendous waste of money, time and resources building parallel infrastructure. You wouldn't want multiple, competing sets of power lines running down every street and into every house, so why would you want multiple communication lines?

Build the infrastructure, regulate it as open-access, then let the private sector compete in the retail market.

 

[trainspotter]

Yep, if you want objective, accurate reporting, look no further than Piers Akerman. What a despicable fat old slimebag he is.

Yep .... discredit the messenger by insults first.

Personality aside, the irony of his complaint about Quigley allegedly failing to reveal the whole truth is absolutely breathtaking, considering all the pertinent facts he decided to omit from his blog, and the inaccuracies within.

OH really?? And what inaccuracies pray tell are they? Please enlighten us.

Nobody is claiming that Quigley or Beaufret knew of, approved or in any way were involved in the bribery. While 3 of the countries involved were at some stages under the Americas region Quigley administered, the sham consultants worldwide were the product of Alcatel Standard based in Switzerland, which reported through Europe (outside Quigley's region).

No one has suggested impropriety there NBNMyths BTW. The article articulated thusly:-

NBN Co chief executive Michael Quigley has made a number of major contradictions or errors over his knowledge of corrupt activities engaged in by his previous employer, Alcatel.

While Quigley and the NBN chief financial officer Jean-Pascal Beaufret, who also came from Alcatel (now Alacatel-Lucent) have never been accused of direct participation or involvement in the Alcatel illegalities, almost every statement Quigley has made about Acatel’s involvement in corruption has turned out to be exaggerated or incorrect when compared with official court records and proceedings.

SEE ........ not saying HE did anything wrong whilst the CEO of the company. CORRECTLY stating that he exaggerated or incorrectly stated compared to the official court records and proceedings. Got the bull by the tail on this one. :

The closest anyone has come to such a claim is Pier's story, which I would suggest is on the knife edge of being libellous. I would hope there are some very highly paid lawyers looking it over right now.

Nope ..... not libelous at all old chum. Nice try to discredit but NON !!!

Anyway, I digress.

The SEC didn't even seek to question either of them during their investigation into Alcatel, and they are not named in any SEC documents. There is absolutely no evidence implicating them in anything. Despite extensive digging no-one has been able to find any, no doubt to the chagrin of Turnbull et al. The whole incident is a coalition attempt to play the man instead of the ball in their attempt to derail the project. Piers (as the self-appointed mouthpiece of everything right-wing) is only too happy to aid the smear.

Where there is smoke there is fire. The BIG BOSS of the company did not even know what was going on underneath him and now is in charge of 26 billion *SCOFF* of taxpayers money to build a shiny blue cable that no one wants or undersatnds. GREAT !!

I think the AFR's David Crowe sums the whole thing up quite well:

http://www.afr.com/p/business/technology/hint_of_mccarthyism_in_coalition_gpkarfG0Zr1dhRO0qzes6J

It's a pity, because from all reports Mike Quigley is a very good man, who rose from being a cadet at STC in Sydney to being 2IC at one of the World's largest multinational communication companies. He fought and beat cancer, twice, and donated his entire $2M first year's salary to Australian cancer researchers. But us Australians love nothing better than cutting those tall poppies down to size, facts and consequences be damned.

Are we not allowed to question such actions? I mean the fraud and bribery in the company was on a wholesale proportion and Mr Quigley did not know about it ?? What was he doing then?? Asleep at the wheel?

I had thought it wasn't possible, but reading Pier's pathetic smear yesterday lowered my opinion of him even further.

You had an opinion of him in the first place? A "despicable fat old slimebag" in your own words.

 

[trainspotter]

Phil and his attitude is some of the best evidence of why we need a wholesale-only, open access government owned infrastructure monopoly as a base for communications services. Because when a private, vertically-integrated monopoly is calling the shots, you get the farce that is current Australian telecommunications.

Can easily be replaced with this statement:-

Senator Conroy and his attitude is some of the best evidence of why we don't need a wholesale-only, closed access government owned infrastructure monopoly as a base for communications services. Because when a government owned, vertically-integrated monopoly is calling the shots, you get the farce that will be the future of Australian telecommunications.

 

[trainspotter]

The HFC rollout of the 90s is a good example.

Because communication cables are a natural monopoly. It is a tremendous waste of money, time and resources building parallel infrastructure. You wouldn't want multiple, competing sets of power lines running down every street and into every house, so why would you want multiple communication lines?

Build the infrastructure, regulate it as open-access, then let the private sector compete in the retail market.

Ummmmmmmm so by building the NBN then Optus and Telstra cannot use the HFC they have already rolled out?? 2.6 million people down the gurgler because "why would you want multiple communication lines".

 

[NBNMyths]

Yep .... discredit the messenger by insults first.

If the shoe fits...

SEE ........ not saying HE did anything wrong whilst the CEO of the company. CORRECTLY stating that he exaggerated or incorrectly stated compared to the official court records and proceedings. Got the bull by the tail on this one. :

He was never CEO of Alcatel.

The implication from Piers is quite clear.

OH really?? And what inaccuracies pray tell are they? Please enlighten us.

Where there is smoke there is fire. The BIG BOSS of the company did not even know what was going on underneath him and now is in charge of 26 billion *SCOFF* of taxpayers money to build a shiny blue cable that no one wants or undersatnds. GREAT !!

Are we not allowed to question such actions? I mean the fraud and bribery in the company was on a wholesale proportion and Mr Quigley did not know about it ?? What was he doing then?? Asleep at the wheel?

That's exactly the point. There is no smoke.

Again, he wasn't the BIG BOSS. He was the region boss of the Americas for 20 months, then boss of North America only, and then the COO for 18 months. The bribery began before he took over the region, and continued after he left. While occurring within a region he had overall supervision of, the enabling schemes (the sham consultants) were administered from another subsidiary (Alcatel Standard), operating from another region (Switzerland-Europe).

The only major issue Quigley has corrected was whether Costa Rica was under his overall responsibility during the 20 months he was prez of Americas. Turns out Costa Rica has gone in and out of the americas region for Alcatel, because of the language barrier. During some periods, it was administered from Spain and Quigley was told that his was one of those periods. He subsequently corrected himself. This didn't contradict any court documents, because neither he or his position were ever mentioned in any court documents.

Piers' other claim that Quigley "admitted being wrong about who instigated the SEC investigation" is incorrect. Quigley said that the SEC investigation was initiated after Alcatel reported it to them. This is correct. The order of proceedings was Costa Rica media uncovered the bribery; Costa Rica began a prosecution; Alcatel commenced an internal investigation; Alcatel informed the SEC. Quigley has never said otherwise.

(I'm going off memory here, so could be out slightly with numbers. I'm sure you can google and find out for yourself) The alcatel americas region had a turnover of about US$15bn during the period where US$8m was paid in bribes in countries where a different language was spoken to the administration of that area (ie the US). You really think that would stand out?

The SEC has prosecuted 44 other companies for similar activities in the last 2 years, including General Electric, Siemens, Daimler, Shell, Fiat, Volvo and BAE Systems. Fines are now in the billions of dollars.

Hell, Tony Abbott can't even stop subordinates in his own country from paying bribes or taking kickbacks. I expect that you'll be demanding his resignation, as obviously he must be asleep at the wheel and incapable of running a $1.2Trillion dollar economy?

No-one wants the NBN?
http://www.essentialmedia.com.au/opinion-of-nbn-2/

You had an opinion of him in the first place? A "despicable fat old slimebag" in your own words.

Yep, that sums him up.

The bottom line here is that there is not a shred of evidence that Quigley knew about any of this. He was never sought, named, charged or even questioned about it. I have no issue with it being investigated, the SEC did so for 5 years. But the investigations are complete and the only people trying to link Quigley to it are the coalition and their media attack dogs.

It's quite reprehensible and this will be the last time I discuss it here.

 

[DB008]

WOW, what a great debate and thread.

I have been sitting on the fence - although leaning towards the Libs and Anti-NBN, cost wise on this one.


Do l want a NBN for Australia; Yes (for sure). Everyone should get a choice to have fast internet, but l feel that $50Billion is a big chunk of money...

Do l think that the current Government is doing it the most cost effective way; Probably Not, there is always room for improvement.

Do l think that they should have consulted and planned this out better; Yes, the 5 P's come to mind.

With the debacles that the current Government has produced in the last few years, that is the main reason for my doubts and because of that, l have my doubts about the NBN. Where is the dual lane highway from Sydney to Brisbane that has been promised last election? Nowhere, set-top boxes and pink batts are out top priority.

As l get more info, l will post.
TS and NBNMyths, keep at it....

DB80

 

[trainspotter]

If the shoe fits...

Good to see you have made your mind up about Piers Akerman being a "despicable fat old slimebag" I would call this slanderous. I wonder what his lawyers would make of these remarks?

He was never CEO of Alcatel.

I stand corrected ..... Mr Quigley was the Amrerican PRESIDENT and COO of ALcatel between 2001 and 2007, when the events took place.

The implication from Piers is quite clear.

Wrong again old chap. Piers maintained it was thus and made it very clear:-

While Quigley and the NBN chief financial officer Jean-Pascal Beaufret, who also came from Alcatel (now Alacatel-Lucent) have never been accused of direct participation or involvement in the Alcatel illegalities, almost every statement Quigley has made about Acatel’s involvement in corruption has turned out to be exaggerated or incorrect when compared with official court records and proceedings.

See .... not saying he did anything illegal just couldn't quite tell/recall the truth when it mattered. There is a difference.

That's exactly the point. There is no smoke.

Again, he wasn't the BIG BOSS. He was the region boss of the Americas for 20 months, then boss of North America only, and then the COO for 18 months. The bribery began before he took over the region, and continued after he left. While occurring within a region he had overall supervision of, the enabling schemes (the sham consultants) were administered from another subsidiary (Alcatel Standard), operating from another region (Switzerland-Europe).

Nope .... PRESIDENT and COO is THE BIG BOSS. The (sham consultants) were based in Costa Rica and they were his responsibility. Wooopsies.

Look here for his response http://www.somewhereincostarica.com/?p=1425

Mr Quigley, who left Alcatel in August 2007 and joined the NBN Co as chief executive in July 2009, initially said the corruption was confined to “two rogue employees” – a statement backed by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. And before being presented with company records showing he had been Alcatel’s Americas president – responsible for North, South and Central America – he maintained he was not responsible for Costa Rica.

“I should not have made the mistake about my responsibility for Costa Rica at the relevant time,” Mr Quigley said yesterday.

The only major issue Quigley has corrected was whether Costa Rica was under his overall responsibility during the 20 months he was prez of Americas. Turns out Costa Rica has gone in and out of the americas region for Alcatel, because of the language barrier. During some periods, it was administered from Spain and Quigley was told that his was one of those periods. He subsequently corrected himself. This didn't contradict any court documents, because neither he or his position were ever mentioned in any court documents.

Hahahahhahahahah "because of the language barrier" What a piss poor excuse. Me no Englese' You claimed it was turning 15 billion a year. I sure as **** as the PRESIDENT and COO of Alcatel would make sure it was under my control. ROFL. 2001 til 2007 BTW

(I'm going off memory here, so could be out slightly with numbers. I'm sure you can google and find out for yourself) The alcatel americas region had a turnover of about US$15bn during the period where US$8m was paid in bribes in countries where a different language was spoken to the administration of that area (ie the US). You really think that would stand out?

LOL at this one as well. You really think you would LOSE 8 million and NOT know about it? GEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZZ I am glad you are not a financial officer of ANY kind. You are hopeless with money. A million here a billion there .... whose money is it again?

The SEC has prosecuted 44 other companies for similar activities in the last 2 years, including General Electric, Siemens, Daimler, Shell, Fiat, Volvo and BAE Systems. Fines are now in the billions of dollars.

And how many of the PRESIDENTS and COO of these companies are running the NBN?

Hell, Tony Abbott can't even stop subordinates in his own country from paying bribes or taking kickbacks. I expect that you'll be demanding his resignation, as obviously he must be asleep at the wheel and incapable of running a $1.2Trillion dollar economy?

Trash talk Tony Abbott all you like ..... like I care??? He is not the PM nor the PRESIDENT nor a COO of a company with a turnover of 1.2 trillion pesos.

No-one wants the NBN?
http://www.essentialmedia.com.au/opinion-of-nbn-2/

Other than you my little technocrat spreading the gospel of the ALP.

The bottom line here is that there is not a shred of evidence that Quigley knew about any of this. He was never sought, named, charged or even questioned about it. I have no issue with it being investigated, the SEC did so for 5 years. But the investigations are complete and the only people trying to link Quigley to it are the coalition and their media attack dogs.

It's quite reprehensible and this will be the last time I discuss it here.

Wow what a big tongue you have Grandma.

Ermmmmmmmm Quigley admitted it was his responsibility "I should not have made the mistake about my responsibility for Costa Rica at the relevant time,” Mr Quigley said yesterday."

 

[trainspotter]

It is a tremendous waste of money, time and resources building parallel infrastructure. You wouldn't want multiple, competing sets of power lines running down every street and into every house, so why would you want multiple communication lines?

" As part of Telstra's deal with the government and the government's desire to avoid competition, Telstra has agreed to shut off its copper network and stop offering broadband over its existing pay TV cable.

This cable runs past 2.5 million homes in metropolitan areas and is capable of 100Mbps speeds for a fraction of the cost of fibre. Optus is in discussions to do the same. The government's NBN Co doesn't want competition. "

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...g-with-fibre-too/story-e6frg6z6-1225964988917

Oh deary, deary me ....... the wheels have fallen off.

 

[NBNMyths]

" As part of Telstra's deal with the government and the government's desire to avoid competition, Telstra has agreed to shut off its copper network and stop offering broadband over its existing pay TV cable.

This cable runs past 2.5 million homes in metropolitan areas and is capable of 100Mbps speeds for a fraction of the cost of fibre. Optus is in discussions to do the same. The government's NBN Co doesn't want competition. "

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...g-with-fibre-too/story-e6frg6z6-1225964988917

Oh deary, deary me ....... the wheels have fallen off.

Is this supposed to be some great revelation? In case you haven't been paying attention, it was announced over 12 months ago that Telstra would begin migrating their customers and shut down their copper and HFC.

If you read that article and came away thinking that it somehow shows the wheels are falling off the NBN, I think you need to go back for another look.

There are a few issues here:

1. The HFC cannot do 100Mbps. That is a speed per node, not per user. And it only applies to areas that have been upgraded. At this stage, Telstra have only upgraded Melbourne even though the 100Mbps specification has been out for 4 years. Ask anyone with cable what sort of speeds they get during normal hours. It's nowhere near 100Mbps. Optus only guarantee that "76% of Optus Cable customers can access speeds of over 8Mbps." So much for 100Mbps, huh? A quarter of their cable customers can't even get 1/10th of that speed.

Fibre is not shared to the same degree, and the NBN is geared to (initially) be capable of 100Mbps to every home simultaneously (The true speeds will be subject to contention of the source, and the ISP, but the NBN component itself will not be a bottleneck, unlike ADSL or HFC).

2. The Telstra and Optus HFC networks are closed vertical monopolies. No other ISP can offer services over them.

3. The NBN business model is geared to deliver the Government's objective of universal broadband at a universal price. Obviously the cost of rolling out goes up the further you get from the CBD. So to offer a universal price, there is some cross-subsidy involved between metro and suburban and regional areas. Just as there is for every utility.

For the NBN to work, it needs a high takeup rate. The Govt are not apologetic about putting things in place to ensure that happens, like shutting down the copper and migrating customers. Telstra also want to dump their copper and the associated multi-billion annual maintenance costs. So there's no argument from them about shutting down the copper. Customers are no worse off. In fact, they will be able to choose from a huge range of retailers, who are currently unable to offer them fast services. If they don't want faster speeds, they won't pay any more for phone or internet than they do now, it will just come via fibre instead of copper. If they do want faster speeds, then they pay for them.

It's already been clearly shown that the market won't build it here. No infrastructure has been built for a decade. What makes anyone think it would start now?

It's a vastly different situation than in Singapore, where high population density ensures multiple networks can be viable, and the private sector is willing to spend on a much lower per-capita cost. Multiple networks is still a ridiculous idea though, and Japan's NTT agrees. The boss there thinks it's stupid to keep copper, and they now remove it as they install the fibre. It wasn't always the case:

 

[sptrawler]

NBNMyths, I just have to jump in again, point 3, is what really gets up my nose. The average priceing model that the ACCC wouldn't allow Telstra to adopt, is now acceptable for N.B.N.
Also it's a bit rich to say no infrastructure has been built for a decade, when it was expected to be payed for by Telstra shareholders.
Telstra and it's infrastructure was sold by the goverment for (someone correct me) $50Billion dollars. To mum and dad Telstra shareholders, then it was systematicaly destroyed by the goverment ACCC attack dog to allow competitors to cherry pick high return areas.
So in summary sell a pig for $50B to the taxpayers who owned it, legislate to cripple it, then charge the taxpayers another $50B to replace it. Then tell them you will sell it back to them again in 5 years. Priceless just Priceless.

Actually if the same was done by the private sector it would be seen as a scam and ASIC would be investigating.

 

[NBNMyths]

NBNMyths, I just have to jump in again, point 3, is what really gets up my nose. The average priceing model that the ACCC wouldn't allow Telstra to adopt, is now acceptable for N.B.N.
Also it's a bit rich to say no infrastructure has been built for a decade, when it was expected to be payed for by Telstra shareholders.
Telstra and it's infrastructure was sold by the goverment for (someone correct me) $50Billion dollars. To mum and dad Telstra shareholders, then it was systematicaly destroyed by the goverment ACCC attack dog to allow competitors to cherry pick high return areas.
So in summary sell a pig for $50B to the taxpayers who owned it, legislate to cripple it, then charge the taxpayers another $50B to replace it. Then tell them you will sell it back to them again in 5 years. Priceless just Priceless.

Actually if the same was done by the private sector it would be seen as a scam and ASIC would be investigating.

That's my point about the whole issue. Telstra is now a private company, and they have no directive to improve anything beyond the USO.

Telstra should have been structurally separated before it was privatised (if it was privatised at all). Perhaps the idea would have been to separate it, then float the retailer and the Govt keep the fixed infrastructure/wholesale portion. The problem of course is that the Govt of the day wanted to sell the goose for the biggest price possible, in order to hang on to their budget surpluses. A split Telstra wouldn't have been as valuable.

But we can't turn back the clock.

Some critics say that the NBN is just another Telstra, but it isn't. This time it isn't a vertical monopoly, it's just the infrastructure set up to provide strong retail competition, without worrying about the conflicting interests of wholesale and retail arms. I am hoping that it is never privatised, but it probably will be eventually.

It was Telstra who proposed different wholesale access pricing in metro and regional areas, not the ACCC. They subsequently amended their proposal to a universal price, which was also rejected by the ACCC as too high, but then provided different pricing in different areas which was approved by the ACCC.

It's true that the ACCC has been at war with Telstra, but that's the issue with incumbent vertical-monopoly telco operators. They have such a massive advantage over any new competitors that regulation is required to deliver any semblance of competition. The interests of consumers are often opposite to the interests of Telstra shareholders. They have the advantage of owning a 50-year-old, Government funded infrastructure network covering almost the entire population. Without regulation to share that, there would be no hope of any competition to Telstra and consumers would lose out even more.

Telstra's defunct 2005 FTTN proposal was all about restoring their monopoly, not about improving services. They wanted to install the nodes and say "Yep, all you competitors who are now in our exchanges, you can still access all the same customers as you do now. You'll just have to roll your own fibre out to our 40,000 nodes to access them." They wanted to strand all their competitors in the exchanges. The proposal, if successful, would have destroyed all competition outside the most profitable, highly populated areas. The ACCC was perfectly right to put the kibosh on it.

Sol Trujillo has a lot to answer for, as nicely explained (and foretold) by Alan Kohler back in 2006:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/busin...k/2006/06/30/1151174395540.html?page=fullpage

 

[trainspotter]

Is this supposed to be some great revelation? In case you haven't been paying attention, it was announced over 12 months ago that Telstra would begin migrating their customers and shut down their copper and HFC.

*GOSH* you are so blind it is unbelievable.

You wrote this "It is a tremendous waste of money, time and resources building parallel infrastructure."

And I pointed out this "As part of Telstra's deal with the government and the government's desire to avoid competition, Telstra has agreed to shut off its copper network and stop offering broadband over its existing pay TV cable."

So on one hand you are saying it is a waste of money to install parallel infrastructure and yet we are paying Telstra to stop offering broadband on a perfectly good HFC.

Yeppers ...... we all need this shiny blue cable.

Better yet ....... just ignore the facts and claim high indignation.

 

[NBNMyths]

*GOSH* you are so blind it is unbelievable.

You wrote this "It is a tremendous waste of money, time and resources building parallel infrastructure."

And I pointed out this "As part of Telstra's deal with the government and the government's desire to avoid competition, Telstra has agreed to shut off its copper network and stop offering broadband over its existing pay TV cable."

So on one hand you are saying it is a waste of money to install parallel infrastructure and yet we are paying Telstra to stop offering broadband on a perfectly good HFC.

Yeppers ...... we all need this shiny blue cable.

Better yet ....... just ignore the facts and claim high indignation.

There is a massive difference between laying parallel equivalent infrastructure (ie: multiple competing fibre networks) and replacing inferior technology with new stuff, then turning off the old stuff.

When the water board replace the old cast iron pipes with plastic ones, they don't keep the old ones running in parallel.

The waste of equivalent competing networks is beautifully illustrated by the Telstra and Optus pay TV cable wars, from which no-one came out a winner and both companies lost hundreds-of-millions of dollars.

On this, Optus say:

People talk about letting infrastructure competition work. Maybe you should learn a lesson from history.

We have empirical evidence of what happened in the late nineties where Optus rolled out a pay TV network down streets in suburban Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Telstra went down the same streets, carpet-bombed the business case and effectively Optus and Telstra wrote off over $1 billion through that period. We were losing $300 million a year through that period at Optus.

So for those that are very brave to ask - and this is always interesting when people tell other people how to spend their money - for those who are very brave to say we should let infrastructure competition continue, [I say] throw money into it.

We've certainly seen empirical evidence that that will not work and that's one of the main reasons we support the NBN.

 

[trainspotter]

One of the great furphys of having an NBN was sprouted that more people will work from home thus saving traffic congestion, pollution etc etc.

But in reality this happens:-

EMPLOYER groups are outraged by a legal decision that makes employers responsible for injuries suffered by staff working from home.

Telstra will be made to pay legal and medical costs in a multimillion-dollar ruling by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Telstra worker Dale Hargreaves, 42, said she slipped down the stairs twice in two months while working on marketing campaigns from her Brisbane townhouse.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/business/tel...me/story-e6frfm1i-1226081649913#ixzz0rphfoMz5

 

[DB008]

Sorry for the delay in posting this, l'm getting slack.

The government has always said that the NBN will be competitively priced....

Internode is the first ISP off the block, lets have a look at what they have to offer;

NBN Retail Pricing Pressure Points

Thursday, July 21st, 2011 by Simon Hackett
The National Broadband Network (NBN) is the subject of promises from the government that consumers will pay comparable prices to current day ADSL2+ and phone service bundles in order to access entry level NBN based services, and that NBN based retail pricing will be nationally uniform.

Unfortunately, a number of pressure points in the wholesale pricing model exist which will make these promises (from the government) untenable in practice, unless serious issues with the underlying pricing model are addressed by NBNCo and the ACCC.

This post elaborates on some of the relevant issues that serve to place upward pressure on NBN based retail pricing in general and even more pressure upon retail pricing in regional areas in particular.

Executive Summary
A focus on the end-state (ten years from now) in terms of wholesale pricing without apparent consideration of how the industry needs to get ‘there’ from here’ means that NBNCo have, in my view, not yet properly addressed the full lifetime impact of the costs of participation by RSPs across the build period.

In particular the NBNCo “CVC” cost construct (when sufficient CVC capacity is installed for adequate customer service quality) will generate huge monthly ‘overhead’ costs for RSPs (ahead of sufficient customers being connected to defray those costs), for several years, cumulatively and separately in each point of interconnect.

A simple change to the pricing model (first 200 megabits of CVC included at no added cost) would solve this almost entirely.

Solving this issue is essential to ensuring an adequate participation rate by RSPs in the NBN, and to ensuring consumer pricing is not driven far higher than it would otherwise be driven during the first several years of the NBN’s build phase.

Second, the ACCC’s ’121 POI’ decision is fundamentally at odds with stated government policy in terms of consumer retail pricing outcomes, it will drive the continued market dominance of Telstra (as the only party not exposed to the resulting additional costs), and it will cause all consumers to pay more for their Internet access as a result. Hence this decision is clearly not in the Long Term Interests of End Users.

Pricing

Internode is offering all its NBN-delivered services as "bundled" plans that include telephone and Internet access services.

Internode's initial residential NBN plan pricing will start at $59.95 a month, with a port speed of 12 megabits per second (Mb/s) downstream and 1 Mb/s upstream and a 30 gigabyte (GB) data quota. A 100/40 Mb/s service with a 1000 GB data quota will cost $189.95. All Internode’s NBN plans include $10 worth of monthly call credits for the bundled NodePhone Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony service.

It will also become possible to obtain the bundled phone service as a conventional analogue fixed line voice service instead of using VoIP, once NBNCo releases this capability later in 2011.

Internode’s NBN pricing aligns its entry-level NBN service with its 30GB data quota Easy Naked ADSL2+ voice and data bundle, which costs from $59.95 a month. The following table summarises proposed prices for Internode's residential NBN services.
http://www.internode.on.net/news/2011/07/236.php

That's expensive!

 

[IFocus]

From what I hear Internode are not that competitive in the market and certainly not a low cost operator.

I think its an opening bid at best, for me on that pricing I would win hugely, inner city would likely lose.

 

[NBNMyths]

Sorry for the delay in posting this, l'm getting slack.

The government has always said that the NBN will be competitively priced....

Internode is the first ISP off the block, lets have a look at what they have to offer;





Pricing


That's expensive!

Internode is a premium ISP. Their NBN bundle pricing is the same as their ADSL2+ bundle pricing:

http://nbnconcerns.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/nbn-retail-pricing/

 

[tayser]

From what I hear Internode are not that competitive in the market and certainly not a low cost operator.

I think its an opening bid at best, for me on that pricing I would win hugely, inner city would likely lose.

Hackett has some legit points re: the backhaul scenario - but their headline prices are guesstimating costs they're anticipating passing on from NBNCo. Internode's probably on the Liberal Party donation list.