Tag: broadband

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Crikey: Telstra holds back broadband speeds. Again.

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The story I wrote for Crikey today has ended up being their lead item, under the completely not provocative at all no Sir headline, Telstra holds back broadband speeds. Again. And it’s free to read.

Confused by Telstra’s rejected low-cal bid for the National Broadband Network? Let’s stir some new jargon into the stew: “DOCSIS 3” and “dark fibre”. Suddenly Telstra’s strategy makes sense — for Telstra — but it delays the rollout of high-speed broadband even further. Again.

The comments have started to come in, starting off with: “Can you please get someone with a real name to write the technology articles?” Poor thing.

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Telstra, you goddam bloody idiots!

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Once more, Telstra demonstrates its appalling arrogance. They’ve just been excluded from bidding for Australia’s National Broadband Network for submitting a non-compliant bid, and now try to deny it despite their own clear evidence.

The Australian IT reports today:

In a statement to the stock exchange, Telstra said it had been excluded from the bidding process because its proposal submitted on November 26 did not include a plan on how to involve small and medium-sized enterprises in the building of the network.

26 November was the closing date for submissions, published well in advance. And yet:

Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie said the reason for its exclusion was “trivial”…

“Telstra provided its SME plan to the Government in early December and, in Telstra’s view, in accordance with the RFP (request for proposals),” said Mr McGauchie.

No, you fuckwit. The closing date was 26 November. Supplying information in “early December” means your submission was missing key elements. Morons.

Did you ask the teacher for an extension? Did you have a note from your mother? FFS! I stand by what I wrote in October: Get over yourself, Telstra!

If you can’t even provide your goddam submission on time, why the hell would we be stupid enough to give you $4.7B of our money?

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Kruddiversary: The internet thanks you for 12 months of achieving nothing

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[This article was first published in Crikey on 27 November, but I forgot that I hadn’t re-posted here.]

Evidence-based policy! National Broadband Network! Australia 2020 Summit! After 11 years of Howard’s opportunism and fear-mongering, Ruddish mantras sounded like… well, like “Fresh Thinking”.

But one year on, precisely none of the NBN has been built. The Summit produced nothing. The Cyber-Safety Plan is trialling (again) unworkable internet filters while Senator Conroy accuses everyone of being a pervert.

Tenders for the NBN only closed yesterday, and Telstra’s off-grid bid means we’re probably in for months of legal battles. Although the network is intended to cover 98% of households, David Kennedy from Ovum Research reckons it’ll take three years to reach the first 50% — that’s 2012.

Continue reading “Kruddiversary: The internet thanks you for 12 months of achieving nothing”

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Oh FFS get over yourself, Telstra!

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Australia’s new National Broadband Network is the country’s biggest infrastructure project in years, and there’s (up to) $4.7 billion in government subsidies up for grabs. But our largest telco Telstra says it won’t tender if it faces “functional separation” into wholesale and retail divisions. Diddums.

Geoff Booth, managing director of Telstra Country Wide says:

We cannot submit a tender, we will not submit a tender… people think we’re playing a bluff here, but I spoke to the chairman yesterday, and the CEO this morning, and the message is clear: we will not bid if separation is not taken off the table.

Well, Telstra, don’t bid then! [shrugs] Honestly, no-one cares.

What’s the “bluff”, Telstra? That the government will just choose another entity to give the funding to? One which doesn’t piss away their time and energy with all this bitching and moaning? One which doesn’t have the overhead of a bloated, inefficient workforce working within bloated, inefficient silo structures?

Ooooh… I’m so scared!

Continue reading “Oh FFS get over yourself, Telstra!”

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Rudd government delivers yesterday’s broadband

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One of the Rudd government’s election promises was a national fibre-to-the-node (FttN) broadband network, putting at least 12Mb/sec download speeds within reach of 98% of the Australian population. Tuesday night’s Federal Budget kept that promise. I think.

Here’s how I wrote about it for Crikey yesterday:

Of $4.7b promised for the National Broadband Network, only 0.16% has been committed: $2.1m this financial year and $5.2m next for “establishment and implementation”. The remaining 99.84% — you know, actually building the thing — is all “nfp”. Not for publication. We’ll get back to you.

Spending is now “up to” the pre-election $4.7b figure. Broadband is competing with run-down roads, railways and ports for a share of the $20b Building Australia Fund, where “disbursements… will be subject to budget consideration, and will be spent responsibly, in line with prevailing macroeconomic conditions.”

Whatever the final budget, Australia will still be rolling out a 12Mb/sec network in 2012. Other countries are rolling out 100Mb/sec networks now.

It really is building yesterday’s network, isn’t it.

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Government releases broadband tender documents

The government has released the tender documents for the national 12Mb/second broadband network. As Richard Chirgwin notes, “I don’t think the minister will get 98% of the population, since that last 8% covers a very big geography. And I think that October for announcing the winner is a very slow process. And that a 5 year rollout is a real snail’s pace. But things have started…”