[CAnet - news] Australia now has Minister for Broadband

For more information on this item please visit my blog at 
http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/ or http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com
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[From a posting by Dirk van der Woude on Gordon Cooks Arch-econ list -- BSA]

New Australian PM Rudd announced his new cabinet. As aspected senator
Conroy, who in the last 14 months got a lot of info from Amsterdam ;-) is
in.

from ZD Australia:
Senator Conroy will now be tasked with implementing the Labor Government's
plan of spending $5 billion to build a national fibre-to-the-node network,
in partnership with private funding provided by a telco. For the first time
in years, Telstra has stopped attacking the government, with the company's
pugnacous policy chief Phil Burgess posting a blog comment endorsing the
Labor government in glowing terms. "Labor Party leaders fully understand and
appreciate the direct link between the deployment of open-access high-speed
broadband and Australia's future economic prosperity," Burgess writes. "This
is all good because that is also the way we at Telstra see it," he says.
Burgess' use of the words "open-access" is interesting given Telstra's whole
emphasis for its fibre build has been on restricting competitor access as
much as possible - or at least, making it financially unviable for them to
use it. When Telstra technology chief Greg Winn launched plans for the fibre
network on November 17, 2005, he said, "We're not building the network for
Optus, SingTel or any other competitor. We're building the network for
Telstra's use with Telstra's customers." Clearly, the company has softened
its stance since, but its ongoing dispute with the former Howard government
was over regulation that it claimed required the company to give access to
competitors at a cost that did not allow it to earn a 'competitive return'
on its investment. "When prices are set below cost, Telstra's shareholders
pick up the difference," the company says. However, independent economic
consultants employed by the competition regulator to assess Telstra's costs
in access disputes frequently disagree with Telstra about its real costs. In
reality, Telstra will be hoping to lobby the Labor government to scrap or
reduce regulations to allow it to charge whatever it likes for access to its
new fibre network. Given that a central part of conservative political
theory is light-touch, non-interventionist government and letting the free
market operate, it speaks volumes that the former conservative government
thought it so important to strongly regulate Telstra. New Broadband Minister
Stephen Conroy will need a steely resolve to keep Telstra both on-side and
under control, while finding a balance that allows Australia to get the
promised fibre network at acceptable pricing.


-- 
Sometimes we will use networks to avoid going places.
But sometimes, still, we will go places to network.
-- William J.Mitchell



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