Aussies: Telstra wants copper all to itself

[Xon]

I really really hate telstra.

Telstra has launched an aggressive plan to effectively lock competitors out of its copper network.

It today detailed its intention to offer 12Mbit/s ADSL2+ to 4 million premises in mainland capital cities using Fibre to the Node (FTTN).

It will do this by installing fibre optic cable to street-side cabinets which then connect to customers' houses directly using less than 1.5KM of existing copper phone line.

Telstra also said it planned to replace 7,500 pair gain systems and remove other "technology blockers" such as loading coils and bridge taps.

But Telstra Chief Operations Officer Greg Winn said today that it would only build the network if competitors didn't get access. "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", he said.

Any competitor that wanted to offer an ADSL or voice service using its own DSLAM hardware would have to build physical cabinets at each node.

But to enable the higher speeds, 20,000 nodes would need to be installed within 1.5km of customer premises. What is currently one exchange build and backhaul run would become almost 50 per exchange — clearly unattainable for most if not all competitors.

"What makes this difficult is the scale of it how much we're going to do and how fast we're going to do it", said Winn. "We are not doing anything that would deny any competitor access to that last portion of the copper."

But Telstra's competitors disagree. Michael Malone, MD of third largest ISP iiNet, called the plan a "sneaky but pointless attempt by Telstra to roll back competition in the last mile" and considered it "doomed to failure". "Telstra is facing real competition, for the first time ever, in its fixed line telephony business", he said. "It's a ridiculously transparent attempt to return to a monopoly position."

The sentiment was echoed by Simon Hackett, MD of Internode, which was the first ISP in Australia to provide ADSL2+ more than nine months ago. "Telstra are likely on the verge of yet another competition notice if they press on with the apparent intention to withhold supply of above-1.5M services to wholesale while offering them at retail", he said.

"Just as their competitors are finally gaining access to the exchange buildings, Telstra are investing billions of dollars in unplugging the copper lines at the exchange end and replugging them into street cabinets, where their competitors are realistically unable to follow them."

Malone believes that its unlikely to be accepted by the ACCC. "There is no chance at all of Telstra getting a regulatory exclusion on the last mile. It would roll the clock back ten years and be bad for all consumers", he said.

Instead, Hackett has called on the ACCC to make ADSL2+ a "declared service", meaning Telstra must offer it to competitors on ACCC terms. ACCC Commissioner Ed Willett seems to agree. He told The Australian yesterday that "refusal to supply might constitute an anti-competitive activity that would be subject to a competition notice, but perhaps the more targeted approach would be to look at declaration of an ADSL service."

But Winn says that if the ACCC forces Telstra to share the network then it "won't do it, plain and simple, it's no go on that piece of the network. And I don't know how to be any more clear than that." Telstra would then concentrate on its national 3G wireless network, he said.

Fucking Telstra, thier customers are all Australians.

The new CEO is cut&burn American shark who doesnt give a shit about that fact that it is Telstra's duty to provide telephone & internet infrastructure. They dont have a choice about sharing the physical network connecting the phone lines.

With the government being so limp wristed about regulating Telstra(because they wish to up the share price & sell the rest of it off), and the ACCC taking forever to do anything, this is not a good thing for Australians.

[Uraniun235]

Don't you guys still have a relatively small pipe from Australia to the rest of the internet? Or is that a myth propagated by your fucked up telecom industry in order to justify the bandwidth caps I've heard about?

[phongn]

There has been some heat with regard to Verizon and SBC regarding their FTTP installations since there will no longer be a copper loop back to the CO, locking you into their services.

[weemadando]

This is fucking bullshit. Trujillo is a shit-bag who's going to destroy all of the recent gains in telecommunications infrastructure.

Him cutting the personnel down to a 20% of its current size might work wonders (cut subsidiaries like FoneZone etc), but I can instead see it coming exclusively from "non-profit" areas like say MAINTENANCE. Because Trujillo seriously seems to be that fucking stupid.

What the gov't should probably do is keep the infrastructure of Telstra under public control and then allow the actual telecomm firm part of it to be privatised - to avoid the shit like them monopolizing the fucking landlines.

[pellaeons_scion]

Telstra acting like a bully. No surprises there. Just out of curiosity, if Telstra owns the infrastructure, would it be a) feasible b) possible, of other Telco's to put in their own infrastructure, if Telstra is going to dick around like its doing?

[Lord of the Farce]

-snip
but I can instead see it coming exclusively from "non-profit" areas like say MAINTENANCE. Because Trujillo seriously seems to be that fucking stupid.

Or it's more of a case of this: "Once I've milked all of the multi-million short-term profit out of this cow, what the hell would I care about the long-term good of Australia teleco infrastructure?"

[Dendrobius]

To serve as a Devil's Advocate here:

Telstra is a strange creature. Many of its functions are closer to being a public service than a company, however it is forced to be run like a company due to the privatisation fetish the Howard government has. This I think is where the major problem is.

From a private company perspective, why the hell should Telstra have to fork out for the infrastructure setup and maintenance, then lease it to its competitors pretty much at cost, meaning that it's bloody well paying for its competitors? That's no way to do business. This basically screws Telstra over six ways to Sunday. How do you become profitable if you're subsidising your competitors who're stealing your market share? You don't, and that's why Telstra as a private company's going down the gurgler so quickly. Witness Telstra shares...ouch.

If everybody else at least were forced to chip in, and then they all share in the network equally, then it'd make sense. At the moment however to my understanding this is not the case. Telstra pays for all infrastructure, all maintenance, and then is forced to give the service away.

To put the shoe on the other foot, 3 put up their own 3G network, but are they forced by the ACCC to lease it to say Telstra or Optus at cost? Hell no. Telstra had to negotiate a network-sharing agreement to get access to it. Why the double standards?

What really should be done is as weemandando already said. Split Telstra, leave the infrastructure part as a government/publicly owned entity, and the remainder will be essentially like Optus, and can then compete on an equal footing.

[Xon]

Don't you guys still have a relatively small pipe from Australia to the rest of the internet? Or is that a myth propagated by your fucked up telecom industry in order to justify the bandwidth caps I've heard about?

Relatively "small" if you call a multi-gigabit link "small".

The problem is the stupidly high costs for building the AUS<->USA link. Then you get ultra-high lease costs. Hundreds of thousands a year wouldnt be unreasonable for renting a chuck of bandwidth for the AUS<->USA link knowing Australia

[Xon]

Telstra acting like a bully. No surprises there. Just out of curiosity, if Telstra owns the infrastructure, would it be a) feasible b) possible, of other Telco's to put in their own infrastructure, if Telstra is going to dick around like its doing?

It would costs well into the billions for other Telco's to build thier own infrastructure. Thats ignoring the fact that Telstra has powers enshrined in law to enable it to put cabling were it is needed and access to it, something other telcos just dont have.

While Telstra is a publicly trading company, they still have considerable number of things written into law about them.