Opinion: Mr Turnbull, you need to do the numbers

[Dennis]

"fasgnadh" <fasgnadh@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:lHL9o.3669$FH2.2754@viwinnwfe02.internal.bigpond.com...

On 15/08/2010 9:28 AM, Neil Gerace wrote:
Trevor Wilson wrote:
Neil Gerace wrote:
There's nothing in favour of letting the government build a network.
The last time that happened, we got the PMG and then Telecom. Yuck!

**You have zero clue. Before Telecom was sold off, Australia had one
of the least expensive, most efficient telephone systems in the world.

Least expensive because it was one of the least capable.

What are you talking about.. there was no market alternatives!

Now we have competition, quality has slipped.

That's because the government monopoly, which had 100 years' head start
on the rest of the market, couldn't deal with it.


That makes no sense whatsoever.. the theory of market competition
states that better competitors should displace less effective players,
but as we all know the network is, by definition, a monopoly.

All that happened is that a government monopoly was replaced by a less
effective (measured by the markets OWN valuation) private monopoly, profit
driven, providing, as we have all experienced, SHIT technical
support because it minimises costs AND thus quality!

<snipped for brevity..>


In the 80's Telecom had real technical experts. Each state had its own
technical training facility which crapped all over any TAFE training.
Servicing of almost all circuit boards in exchange equipment and radio comms
were serviced/repaired in house. In the early 90's all of this was dumped
along with the people that provided the service. All failed gear now goes
back the the manufacturer. The vast majority of Telstra techs are now not
much more than card jockeys.

 

[kreed]

On Aug 15, 3:30 pm, Erik Vastmasd <erik.va...@sd.invalid> wrote:

I caught a glimpse of kreed <kenreed1...@gmail.com> on Sat, 14 Aug 2010
18:10:01 -0700 (PDT), writing in aus.education:

Why do I say this is misleading? In the past few days the former
Coalition and Liberal leader told a Sydney audience that there was no
demand among households and small businesses for 100Mbps connection
speeds.

I doubt that there is a big demand for something that fast, especially
at the sky-high price tag that
will come with it.

For the few businesses that need that speed, they can set up a
dedicated link for them, either wireless or fibre.
No doubt they already have this.

How do businesses go about setting up a dedicated high speed link?
I'm not interested in wireless but would be interested to learn if
private individuals can connect to the same fibre that you say
businesses: "No doubt they already have this"
--

possibly leased lines (even fibre or dedicated wireless link ?)

Even a decade ago universities, data centres and business customers
who were willing to pay could get very high speeds compared to the
rest of us. (T1 etc come to mind).

Maybe someone can give a definite answer on this or other methods used
already for very high speeds.

>  Erik

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2010-08-15, Erik Vastmasd <erik.vastm@sd.invalid> wrote:

How do businesses go about setting up a dedicated high speed link?
I'm not interested in wireless but would be interested to learn if
private individuals can connect to the same fibre that you say
businesses: "No doubt they already have this"

contact an ISP and say "your retail internet offerings are too slow,
can you provide a higher bandwidth connection?"

--
¡spuɐɥ ou 'ɐꟽ ʞooꞀ

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---

 

[Neil Gerace]

Dennis wrote:

In the mid 80's IIRC Telecom was the highest tax paying entity in Oz, but we
wont let that get it the way of an opinion will we....

What has that to do with the efficiency of the then GBE (government business enterprise)?

 

[Neil Gerace]

Dennis wrote:

In the mid 80's IIRC Telecom was the highest tax paying entity in Oz, but we
wont let that get it the way of an opinion will we....

That's because it was the largest 'company'. And *that's* because of its 100-year head start on the rest of the market.

 

[Neil Gerace]

fasgnadh wrote:

That makes no sense whatsoever.. the theory of market competition
states that better competitors should displace less effective players,

Only in a free market. In this case, Telecom, the less effective 'player' controlled all the hardware and software that
ran the phone system, by virtue of a government ordained 100-year head start. Therefore it had overwhelming market power
despite being less efficient.

 

[Neil Gerace]

Dennis wrote:

In the 80's Telecom had real technical experts.

Yes, it did. I remember that it was Telecom, together with Monash Uni, which brought the Internet to Australia.

But the technical experts weren't the ones manning the customer service lines, and they weren't in control of scheduling
new connections.

 

[Neil Gerace]

fasgnadh wrote:

Except one small thing.... THE MARKET DIDN'T DO IT! 8^o

The PMG and later Telecom had a monopoly. The market *wasn't allowed* to build the network.

It's a pathetic shell of it's former self, and just got fined
$18,000,000 for UNCOMPETITIVE behaviour... B^D

Because it found itself unable to compete DESPITE being the biggest company in Australia when it was corporatised while
still government-owned!

So ADSL is the common solution.. put your hand up if you have this
weak compromise.. or wireless, more unreliable and slower than
cable broadband, in many areas where it's available.


The last time that happened, we got the PMG and then Telecom.

Because BEFORE that you had BUGGER ALL from the 'Market'! B^]

Because that was ILLEGAL!!

 

[Neil Gerace]

terryc wrote:

and almost all had a standard cost for a telephone install where ever you
were.

You waited weeks if you were really fortunate, and your exchange was, likely as not, still manual if you lived outside
the cities.

 

[terryc]

On Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:49:49 +0800, Neil Gerace wrote:

terryc wrote:

and almost all had a standard cost for a telephone install where ever
you were.

You waited weeks if you were really fortunate, and your exchange was,
likely as not, still manual if you lived outside the cities.

Bungendore in the 80's was about the last operator plugged telephone
exchange that I dealt with.

 

[Surfer]

On Sun, 15 Aug 2010 09:04:45 +1000, atec77 <atec77@hotmail.com> wrote:

On 15/08/2010 2:57 AM, Neil Gerace wrote:
There's nothing in favour of letting the government build a network. The
last time that happened, we got the PMG and then Telecom. Yuck!

I wouldn't mind a slightly higher speed , I really want more data and a
price reduction

I think the comfortably well off will freely pay for high definition
video phones and down loading of movies.

Profitable companies will likewise freely use video conferencing.

The high data flows will provide extra income to ISPs and the NBN and
so allow costs to be reduced for the rest of us.

 

[Rod Speed]

Neil Gerace wrote

Dennis wrote

In the 80's Telecom had real technical experts.

Yes, it did. I remember that it was Telecom, together with Monash Uni, which brought the Internet to Australia.

Like hell Telecom did. In spades with the end users.

But the technical experts weren't the ones manning the customer
service lines, and they weren't in control of scheduling new connections.

 

[Rod Speed]

Neil Gerace wrote

terryc wrote

and almost all had a standard cost for a telephone install where ever you were.

You waited weeks if you were really fortunate,

Try months or even years.

and your exchange was, likely as not, still manual if you lived outside the cities.

Thats just plain wrong. They were long gone before the telecom monopoly was removed.

 

[Rod Speed]

Surfer wrote

atec77 <atec77@hotmail.com> wrote
Neil Gerace wrote

There's nothing in favour of letting the government build a network.
The last time that happened, we got the PMG and then Telecom. Yuck!

I wouldn't mind a slightly higher speed , I really want more data and a price reduction

I think the comfortably well off will freely pay for high definition video phones

You're wrong. They can do that right now with mobile phones and dont bother.

and down loading of movies.

Hordes do that right now.

Profitable companies will likewise freely use video conferencing.

They are welcome to pay for that capability. It makes absolutely no
sense to be paying $50B to connect 97% of HOUSES so they can do that.

The high data flows will provide extra income to ISPs

Pity about how the $50B is paid for.

and the NBN and so allow costs to be reduced for the rest of us.

Pity about who gets to pay that $50B. It wont be paid for by fairys at the bottom of the garden, stupid.

 

[Mark Harriss]

kreed wrote:

That is true. I have several friends who had that knowledge and
experience from various
parts of Telstra and PMG. Sadly they are getting near retirement age,
in another 20 years will be gone
and that knowledge will be gone with them.

Telecom seemed to make a big effort to get rid of these people during
the late 1980's through the 1990's.
I don't know why.

One guy I know had six different bosses when they downsized him, one
of the bosses tried to attach his halfwit son in law to him to take
over but he was too stupid. Anyway a week later and they were all
ringing him asking how to program this bit of equipment or how to fix
something else anyway you can guess what he told them.

 

[Mr.T]

"Surfer" <no@spam.net> wrote in message
news:s8gd669s0n006vnqf493kdsc2fb15rdoo3@4ax.com...

Opinion: Mr Turnbull, you need to do the numbers
Trevor Clarke (Computerworld)
09 August, 2010

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/356221/opinion_mr_turnbull_need_do_n

umbers/

Malcolm Turnbull's recent claim that Australians will not want a
100Mbps connection, as offered under Labor's National Broadband
Network, ignores the entire history of our access to the Internet and
is recklessly misleading.

"The reality is, there simply isn't demand at the household and every
small business level for Internet at that speed, at a price which
would make it even remotely financially viable"

-----------------

Seems to me he is correct, the key words being "AT a PRICE which would make
it financially viable"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IF it was, then private industry would build it *without* a $43BILLION cost
to tax payers!


MrT.

 

[Mr.T]

"kreed" <kenreed1999@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1d88bdd5-cc15-4d57-b61f-cd4db212e66c@m17g2000prl.googlegroups.com...

Telecom seemed to make a big effort to get rid of these people during
the late 1980's through the 1990's.

Yep over 30,000 retrenched without a whimper from government, and yet when a
few miners, or woodchippers might lose their jobs it's a calamity according
to them, and $Billions needs to be spent, or foregone in revenue to stop it!

I don't know why.

To save a few dollars in wages, so they could pay Sol (and his amigo's) over
$50million!!!!

There are still plenty like that. There are still a large number who
still have and only use the basic phone service/features that was
around 30 years back.

And even more who might use it IF they could afford it. Spending $43Billon
of taxpayers money on an NBN won't help them!

MrT.

 

[Mr.T]

"fasgnadh" <fasgnadh@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:lHL9o.3669$FH2.2754@viwinnwfe02.internal.bigpond.com...

When telstra has a problem with it's news server as happened recently,
no-one in their tech support knows what the hell Usenet is!!!!! B^D

Nor at Optus. And most of the rest don't even bother to provide Usenet!

what we get is duplicated Marketing and Sales twonks
selling poorly understood products, and the closure of Telecom's
Clayton Research lab because who the hell needs research! B^p

They closed it so they could compete with Optus in the race to the bottom.
Optus had no use for R&D in Australia, so Telstra saw no point either.

MrT.

 

[Mr.T]

"atec77" <atec77@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:i477ed$977$1@news.eternal-september.org...

I wouldn't mind a slightly higher speed , I really want more data and a
price reduction

AND??? You won't get BOTH!

MrT.

 

[Mr.T]

"Surfer" <no@spam.net> wrote in message
news:kjfg665f19jgf7gresa08dq06j0gd4e8f7@4ax.com...

I think the comfortably well off will freely pay for high definition
video phones and down loading of movies.

Profitable companies will likewise freely use video conferencing.

The high data flows will provide extra income to ISPs and the NBN and
so allow costs to be reduced for the rest of us.

Yep you'll get faster speeds and higher taxes to cover the $43Billion. But
why should those who don't even need broadband pay the extra taxes?
I'd FAR prefer to get a decent Electricity and water supply first!!!!!!!!!


MrT.