broadband and Telstra

[miriam_e]

Got a propaganda leaflet from Telstra. (For those of you not in Australia Tesltra is our biggest telecommunications company -- they used to be a somewhat benign government-owned monopoly, but since being privatised have taken a holy "Greed is Good" approach to everything they do. Swindling their customers at any chance.) This leaflet purports to complain that government regulations are keeping Telstra from getting broadband to the Australian public. What a load of crap! What is keeping broadband restricted in Australia is the incredibly high prices charged, and this is a result of how Telstra still own most of the infrastructure and force their competitors' prices up. The whole idea of selling off Telstra was a con from the start. It should have been kept as a public entity and used as a way to ensure private companies don't take advantage of their customers. Instead, a greedy government sold our heritage off for quick cash and we will pay for it in decreased services and increased prices forever afterward.

Have you noticed how few free, value-added services remained after Telstra was privatised?
Have you noticed how free-market advocates trumpetted that since privatisation Telstra phone call charges have fallen? But have you noticed how your bill has continued to get bigger because although individual calls are slightly lower, rental prices have risen manyfold.
Have you noticed how these supposedly cheaper call prices still keep it far more expensive to phone a nearby city here in Australia than to phone the other side of the planet?
Have you noticed how costly mobile phones are compared to land-lines? And did you know it is actually cheaper to run a mobile network than a land-line one?
Have you noticed how much cheaper mobile phones are in other countries?

Telstra, as a company, have become the worst bunch of liars. This leaflet is an example of the bullshit they dish out now.

If Telstra were given complete control of the broadband market their current performance of providing the worst broadband service of all gives us an idea of what we could expect.

Comments

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Telstra is a fine example of how bad an idea privitisation is. I don't fault their current behaviour, however: they're doing exactly what a good private company should. It just highlights the failure of the current government's ideology: the imposition of private models on public services.

Which is why I was kinda pleased to see them squirming recently when the company started complaining about government controls and strictures: the government, despite their being the instigators of this new Frankenstein's Monster, still has this concept that Telstra should operate as a plaything for them.

*sigh* They continue to cock up, and continue to refuse to take their lumps.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Capitalism is a wonderful invention. It can do a lot of fantastic things. It has built-in checks and balances that make it responsive to the needs of the population in ways that feudalism, communism, fascism, dictatorship, and theocracy never could. It works incredibly well, especially in extreme decentralisation. The problem is, this all breaks down when any group grows too powerful, which is why we have measures to prevent monopolies. Capitalism, unfortunately, undoes itself because companies often tend to grow bigger and more powerful and this undercuts most of capitalism's great advantages.

In this respect I think Telstra is not a good example of capitalism. They don't do what a good private company should. They lie, and cheat, and try to screw over their customers, and try to bully others every chance they get. Telstra is a perfect example of what is killing capitalism.

Capitalism could work really well to everyone's advantage, but the ugly little genie of sociopathic mentality keeps getting loose and blowing it. I doubt that many corporations will take long-term views of the world or consider social value as a way to increase monetary value. Some will -- some always have -- but most won't.

I have a feeling we are nearing a change... one of those big, world changes, like the end-of-feudalism kind of change. I think capitalism is approaching its use-by date. I don't know what is coming next, but I think it will have social justice built into it and will automatically impede powerful groups.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Okay. I'm reading that the capitalist structure is an effective one, but corporative bodies undermine its strengths? I'd certainly agree with that.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yep, capitalism beats most things, but its tendency for some companies to grow without limit screws it every time. Capitalism works best on the small scale, in my opinion -- corner stores, owner drivers, individual musicians, doctors, and so on. As soon as these join together into larger entities it starts to go wrong (no absolutely every time, but most times... just like there can be benevolent dictators, generally dictatorships are not a good idea).

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

Actually, mobiles are not such a good one to bring into the equation. There are more plentiful cheaper options for using mobiles in Australia than in, say, the USA. Almost every US carrier provides hardware-locked phones and puts users into a contract. Pre-paid phone cards over there tend to only last a month, not 6 months, making the minimum you can spend on pre-paid about 6 times what it is here.

But that is precisely because we have multiple mobile networks and real competition, whereas the landline business is a monopoly revenue source.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

On the contrary, mobiles illustrate the point really well. USA is one place where the bad aspects of capitalism have had more time to encrust.

If you want to see what true competition does then look at China, where people pay a pittance for mobiles.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

The "bad" aspects of capitalism are "encrusted" in the USA in some way that they mysteriously only apply to mobile phones?! Oh, come off it. Why do they not apply to other goods and services? ... Because the specifics of the industry are what's important.

And people get paid a pittance in China too. Without a costing of a mobile phone call there as a percentage of weekly wages, the assertion regarding true competition is meaningless.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

:) They do apply to other goods and services. I don't know why it is generally assumed that USA is a shining light of capitalism... well I actually do, of course, if people say something often enough then people start to believe it is true.

The wages in China are low, yes, but how does that influence things? A phone is still a phone. Most of the mobile phones we get here in Oz are probably made in China. Why the magical jump in price? Other things make it across the ocean and remain economical. As you hinted, it is because the communications companies know they can force a high price here -- there is an unspoken agreement that they will all charge us obscenely high prices. That is a kind of pretend competition.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

One problem with mobile phones is that they are often bundled with the phone service, which is why I don't think it's a useful comparison. I was keeping to the service part because of that and because, for most people, the cost of the handset itself is pretty close to irrelevant.

I am believing that competition in the USA lowers prices because I experience it regularly. Maybe people are saying something "often enough" because it's true? My watch cost about $90 in the USA and would have cost $300+ here. I've bought hard drives, CD-RW drives, etc, for under $20 there (new) that would cost $80+ here. Board games that cost $32.21 (at today's mid-rate) in the USA cost $64 here. (That was just a random choice of something I bought recently. Most board games are 80-100% more here.)

[damien-wise.livejournal.com]

I think they're concerned about the falling number of their customers. They're sad because their share-price continues to fall, no matter how many jobs they axe or send offshore. They're peeved that their mobile numbers are static despite their recent splurge on "mobile broadband" propaganda (it's little faster than dial-up and unreliable...sure it's wireless, but it's far from broadband).
And, now they're shit-scared because Labor is saying they'll fund a state-owned fibre-to-the-home scheme that all carriers will have an equal utilisation of. Effectively, this kill Telstra's monopoly on outdated copper wire, which is really what's choking broadband in this country (after it was dropped on the floor after birth by (now ex-)Senator Richard Alston)). I predict that if Labor gets elected, it'll sell what's left of the failing company while the shares are still worth something, then the company will shrivel within a decade. Meanwhile, the government will once-again own and run the dominant carrier infrastructure.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I remember feeling really upset when Telstra decided not to bother with continuing the optical fibre rollout. While other countries were stepping up their optic fibre deployment Australia was going backwards. [sigh]

I hope Testra do crumble and die, along with all the other ripoff telecommunications companies in Australia. I hope a free, peer-to-peer systems springs up (I've had some thoughts on how to kick-start just such a thing). The only way we will really boost communications is to make it free. Imagine the boom in other things that would enable!