Australia's Broadband Drought

By Scott Maxworthy - Wed, 02/21/2007 - 23:02

Strong mining = strong exports
Strong banking = strong commerce
Strong telecommunications = strong economy, society, connections.

There is a clear relationship between economic growth and investment in technology.

The building and construction industry has the lowest level of technology adoption and the lowest productivity growth. (Note: The new NextG network will help that)

As we've seen with the NSW economy, when governments stuff up the building and construction industry then everything else in the economy slows down (but that's a different story).

Governments need to make decisions which foster economic and social growth or "stick to their knitting" [sorry threw that in for Google SEO].

Small Businesses are the backbone of the Australian economy but can't afford their own expensive communications infrastructure. They need fast and reliable standard services.

As we've said time and time before - make life easier for small business, don't rip us off and you'll earn our trust and support. Remember for every 1 big business there are about 100,000 small ones!

With small businesses in mind today Phil Burges, from Telstra (one of the three amigos) announced their BACk Telstra.

The "BAC" stands for Broadband Australian Company (for those that are interested). Personally from a marketing perspective it's a pretty lame name for such an important subject but I can't comment some people don't even like the BANGitUP name! (ye gads!)

Anyway, the guts of the argument comes down to who should determine our (read you and I) telecommunications infrastructure - government or the public and Telstra?

It's a tough one - everyone is a bit sus of big corporate abuse but innovation and government are rarely mentioned in the same sentence (excluding the ABC that is [lot's of clever stuff going on there).

The current "competition" policy for broadband has only benefited those living close major centres. It appears current Government policy is a bad game of bluff, hoping Telstra will eventually cave in as shareholders become more and more concerned at reducing fixed line revenues.

Guess what - most of the 1.9m small businesses don't live in the city and are stuck with a piffy 1.5mpbs ADSL. We're not happy but have been pointing the finger at the wrong culprit.

At the moment Australia is ranked something like 17th in the world. That's pathetic.

The future of this country lies in two areas - biotechnology and telecommunications.

Anyway, let's you and I decide not a group of politicians playing power games. Which pollie said 8mb per second is enough? Let me tell you - a fully rendered 3D building is a bloody big file - add collabortion tools on top of that, VOIP and multipoint conferencing and your 8mb is looking like a string and a couple of cans.

To prosper in the emerging global information economy we'll need 100mps and beyond.

If the corporate price is too expensive then we'll opt out or on charge it to our customers as a cost of business - that's basic economics and market forces.

As we've said time and time again Smart Australia requires bigger, thicker pipes to carry our data that will provide better information services. The more services the greater productivity, yes and revenue to Telstra.

Let's just get on with it.

The BACK campaign is simply empowering people to tell government to provide a level playing field - it's letting shareholders understand the bigger issues beyond the short term share price.

From a building industry and small business perspective BANGitUP is an active BACk Telstra supporter (though I'm not particularly happy with some of their other decisions but I'd much prefer our money going to an Australian company)

nowwearetalking - BACK Telstra

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