Richard Naylor wrote:
I'm a bit sleepy and may be reading this wrong, and I haven't read the full report, but my understanding is quite the opposite. I understand the Commissioner is saying "don't rely solely on Telecom's infrastructure (its old legacy stuff with no future) focus instead on making the NZ Broadband Internet using newer stuff".
If he was, why then is he so keen on cementing Telecom's already firm position as the roadblock on the "Information Superhighway"?
Personally I agree with him. NZ has had the *best* deregulated environment for the past 12 years and has largely squandered that advantage.
Therefore, new initiatives are needed. The commissioner equates broadband with 256/128k ADSL with several service limitations and no guarantees as to performance. It's almost 2004... we should be looking at tens of Mbps services, if not faster.
I believe there are plenty of alternatives such as fiber, wireless, cat-5 (a personal favourite) with alternative architectures that are perfectly viable, scalable etc. Accept the fact that Telecom's local loop is based on older cable which doesn't meet many requirements other than a phone and DSL, and is of diminiuishing value for real broadband. Every effort overseas (and remember is all about economic development NOT communications) is where countries are building new networks.
In terms of business models look back in time and see how little NZ got power to its smaller towns and cities. They were build by community owned power boards. Its a very effective way of raising the capital as well as providing lots of local employment. They weren't build by NZED/transpower/etc and Telecom won't invest in real broadband in those areas while its share price/value slides to zero.
Although I agree that community networks are probably the only way out of this mess, your analogy doesn't quite hold. To start with, there were no existing electricity grids in the past, and they didn't have to link up with one another. With Telecom in place, anyone wanting to build a community network would have to contend with a national giant with deep pockets that is allowed to offer predatory street-by-street pricing and charge hair-raising fees for interconnectivity.
And as for why Telstra would want to build dsl over copper networks today with new plant, well I can only think of Lemmings......
Well, DSL is a known technology with lots of off-the-shelf products available for it. (So's Ethernet, but it's not widely deployed like DSL, and certainly not by telcos.)
Sorry for the rant, I'm a bit passionate about broadband and how NZ was WASTED the chance it had.
No kidding.
BTW - Happy Christmas everyone.
It's been already. Check your clock ;-) -- Juha