Telstra clears way for ADSL2 rollout

COMMUNICATIONS Minister Stephen Conroy has had a major victory, clearing the path for Telstra to roll-out ADSL2+ broadband services to an additional 900 exchanges across Australia.

In a joint announcement with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Senator Conroy said the roll-out would give an additional 2.4 million households access to next-generation high-speed broadband.

Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo said the speed of the carrier's ADSL service would lift from 8Mbps to 20Mbps in 900 exchanges around Australia over the next eight months.

The Telstra announcement is great news for broadband in Australia. The company said it would proceed with the roll-out following assurances from Senator Conroy about the regulatory treatment of the initiative.

Telstra had previously baulked at rolling out ADSL2+ to exchanges because it said it did not have regulatory certainty about whether it would be forced to open up the investment to other carriers.

Until now, the company has only offered ADSL2+ at exchanges where other carriers had already installed their own ADSL2+ infrastructure.

The Telstra ADSL2+ investment means fast broadband with download speeds of up to 20 Mbps will now be available in more cities and towns throughout Australia.

“The Chairman of the ACCC, Mr Graeme Samuel, advised me that the ACCC has made a number of consistent public statements relating to the regulation of wholesale access to ADSL services,” Senator Conroy said.

“As a result of this advice, I concluded that there is a high degree of regulatory certainty in relation to the ACCC's approach to wholesale ADSL2+ services,” he said.

“I am delighted that I could provide this assurance to Telstra and that, as a result, a large number of Australian homes and businesses will have access to improved broadband services.”

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Regional communications review begins

THE Rudd Government moves to assess communications services in the bush has begin, with its Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee beginning a convening a nationwide series of public meetings.

The Committee, chaired by eye surgeon and former Australian Medical Association president Bill Glasson, held its first public meeting in Perth yesterday and will travel across the country to 19 destinations to hear from regional, rural and remote communities on telecommunications issues.

“The Committee is encouraging individuals, businesses, community and industry organisations, education, health and government service providers, carriers and others to contribute their views to the Review by attending the public meetings,” Dr Glasson said.

“The Committee’s ability to provide sound advice to the Australian Government on areas needing attention depends on the views of those living in Australia’s regional, rural and remote communities.”

The committee’s consultations will be conducted through until May, and a report on communications in the bush will be handed to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Stephen Conroy in August.

“This will enable the Committee to take into account other Australian Government policies that will improve regional telecommunications across Australia, such as the National Broadband Network which will bring fibre-to-the-node broadband services to 98 per cent of the population,” Senator Conroy said.

Dr Glasson, who is also a member of Government’s Northern Territory Indigenous Taskforce, spends a considerable amount of his time in the bush treating infectious eye diseases and performing life-changing cataract operations.

Other committee members include National Farmers Federation telecommunications specialist Mark Needham; Queensland cattle station owner Bruce Scott; Northern Territory lawyer Josephine Stone; and Victorian agriculturalist Alexandra Gartmann.

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Conroy postpones CDMA closure

TELSTRA will keep its CDMA mobile phone network operational for at least three months longer than its planned January 28 closure after the Rudd Government said it was unhappy with its replacement network.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said it was not yet possible to “declare equivalence” between the CDMA coverage and the Next G network that replaces it – a condition of allowing Telstra to shut down the ageing CDMA system.

“I have notified Telstra today that at this point in time I am not in a position to declare equivalence between the Next G network and the CDMA networks,” Senator Conroy said.

“Telstra will provide me with advice within two weeks on how they will address the issues that have been identified, and report to me on the rectification to enable me to reconsider this matter.

“Telstra have advised me that this can be done by 28 April. This seems reasonable.”

Senator Conroy said that a report from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) had found that while the coverage footprint of the Next G network was the equivalent of the CDMA system, some Next G handsets did not provide equivalent coverage.

“I appreciate that Telstra has been very active in working with customers affected by this situation, including exchanging handsets in genuine cases where this is required to give them equivalent coverage,” Senator Conroy said.

“I have made it clear to Telstra that it should continue to do everything possible to ensure that customers are using the correct Next G equipment. This should include replacing handsets at no financial penalty in genuine cases.”

Telstra Country Wide Group Managing Director Geoff Booth accepted the decision to postpone the CDMA closure and welcomed Senator Conroy ruling that the Next G Network provided equivalent network coverage footprint to the outgoing CDMA network.

“We have been on a path to resolve customer issues by 28 January and we were confident we would meet our deadline,” Mr Booth said.

“The Minister has made a different assessment but we are very pleased that he has given us a clear goal for closure, a process to get there, and a clear message to CDMA customers that they need to move quickly.”

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Telstra puts legal squeeze on Conroy

IF the Rudd Government thought Telstra was going to take some of the heat out of its legal battle over the Coalition’s awarding of Commonwealth money to a competitor, it must be disappointed.

Telstra has confirmed it will continue legal action to force the disclosure of documents used by the Howard Government to justify the awarding of $958 million to the Optus/Elders (Opel) joint-venture to build broadband infrastructure in regional Australia.

The company has simply switched the focus of court action from former Communications Minister Helen Coonan – with whom the company had a poisonous relationship – to the new Minister, Stephen Conroy.

Telstra said yesterday it would write to Senator Conroy and ask him to cut short the court action by voluntarily releasing the documents that would explain how the decision to award the business to Opel was made.

The company said it would proceed with plans to appeal to the Federal Court a lower court decision that denied it access to the documents.

“Telstra first took this legal action based on the principle that governments should act transparently and be accountable when they spend taxpayers' money,” Telstra group managing director for public policy and communications Phil Burgess said in a statement.

“We also believe that Telstra shareholders, who are also taxpayers, deserve to know how a commercial rival was given such a large taxpayer-subsidised benefit despite the existence of a competitive market in mobiles.”

The move comes exactly seven months since he announcement by the then Government that it would fund the OPEL wireless broadband network for regional Australia.

“Seven months later OPEL has no management, no carrier license, no confirmed spectrum and no settled technology platform. It is, in every sense, a phantom network offering phantom services to phantom customers,” Dr Burgess said.

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Farmers call to action on CDMA

THE National Farmers Federation has made an urgent call to its members for feedback on coverage in the bush of Telstra’s new 3G network – and stands ready to fight the CDMA closure if coverage proves patchy.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy will make a decision by January 21 on whether to allow Telstra to close its CDMA network – which is used predominantly in rural and regional areas.

Telstra wants to shut the network down on January 28. But Telstra’s licensing conditions state that the company must continue to operate the CDMA network until its 3G coverage is “equivalent or better” that CDMA.

Senator Conroy this week received a report on Telstra 3G network coverage from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). He says he still wants to hear feedback from users before making the decision.

The issue is shaping to be the first big test of Senator Conroy since the election. On the one hand, Telstra is applying pressure to be allowed to switch off CDMA because it will save the company millions.

On the other, the NFF – and people in regional areas generally – are wary of the switch, and are already annoyed that the consultation process has been hampered by a lack of 3G network hardware.

As late as last month, the NFF was lobbying Government to force Telstra to keep the CDMA network operational. It is a conducting a new survey of its membership to see things had improved.

“Realistically, farmers haven’t had much time to get, and test, the new hardware to know whether 3G is up to scratch – especially with the Christmas period and other priorities... i.e. for those farmers able to get a crop during the current drought, they’ve been busy harvesting,” the NFF said in a statement.

“We are now re-surveying farmers – through our member organisations – to assess not only 3G coverage, but the service, given the new hardware is now available.”

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We’ll proceed without Telstra: Tanner

THE Rudd Government was unfazed by Telstra blunt rejection of plans to build a national broadband network based on joint public-private funding and ownership.

Newly sworn-in Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has told ABC Television the Labor Government would proceed with the $4.7 billion plan for the national network with or without Telstra.

And the Government’s new Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, said Labor remained committed to building a national fibre-to-the-node network.

Senator Conroy said government hoped to complete the tender process to select partners to build the network by the middle of next year.

“It will be open access, promote competition and put downward pressure on consumer prices,” Senator Conroy said. “We will hold an open and transparent process to determine who will build the network with our ambition being to complete the process by the end of June next year,”

“We expect that there will be much public commentary, jockeying and lobbying from parties as they work to convince the Government that they are best placed to build the new network and seek the terms that are most favourable to them.”

Labor promised in March that it would contribute $4.7 billion in public money toward a public-private national “open access’’ network. Government will issue tenders next year seeking proposals from the private sector to build the network.

But Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo last week last week rejected the plan, saying the company would only participate in projects that “we own and control.”

Mr Tanner said the Government’s plans were not contingent on Telstra taking part.

“The policy we put forward some months ago is a position that still stands. We are going to proceed,” Mr Tanner said.

“It is Telstra’s choice as to what role they want to play or not,” he said.

Government would wait until seen private sector proposals as part of the tender process before deciding how to structure the network.

Mr Tanner said the policy had been kept as flexible as possible so that the private sector could develop new ideas for implementing a cost effective and technologically efficient network.

“We are going to proceed with the position that we put to the Australian people,” Mr Tanner told the ABC Inside Business program.

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ICT get a boost in new Cabinet

THE technology industry has been given a major profile boost in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s first Cabinet, with the appointment of two senior Ministers with responsibility for ICT-critical issues.

Stephen Conroy was appointed as Minister to the newly-named portfolio of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy. Senator Conroy has been shadow IT and communications spokesman since 2004, and had been expected to retain those responsibilities – largely because of the incredible complexities of telecommunications regulation (and Telstra-related regulatory issues).

Senator Conroy was a driving force behind Labor’s bold A$4.7 billion national broadband pledge, made in March.

Less expected was the appointment of fellow Victorian Senator Kim Carr as Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. Senator Carr had been shadow Industry Minister, but Mr Rudd bolstered the portfolio with the addition of Innovation.

Senator Carr will oversee the implementation of industry assistance programs – which will play a huge role in the development of indigenous software companies.

The appointments have been welcomed by the industry.

“We are pleased that the Prime Minister-elect, Kevin Rudd, has acknowledged technology as the driving force of our nation’s economic prosperity and reinforced this stance by including the ICT portfolio in Cabinet,” said the Australian Computer Society’s out-going national President Philip Argy.

“Innovation is a pivotal force in building our national economy and energising our industry. Our prosperity is dependent on productivity gains underpinned by innovation in information and communications technologies,” Mr Argy said.

Lindsay Tanner’s appointment as Finance Minister in the Rudd Cabinet has also been welcomed. Mr Tanner has been a Shadow Communications Minister and is very familiar with the industry.

As a technology buyer, the federal government wields, tremendous influence through the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), which falls within the Department of Finance.

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Govt broadband a sham: Thinktank

A conservative thinktank with close links to the Liberal Party has attacked Government’s WiMAX broadband plans, saying network coverage will be less than 50 per cent of the area government has claimed.

The Institute of Public Affairs has released a report that redraws the network coverage maps with a more conservative estimate of WiMAX range capabilities and taking into account topographical features. Its conclusions are grim.

The Mebourne-based Institute of Public Affairs is described by the web site sourcewatch.org as being closely associated with the Liberal Party, with its executive director having been pre-selected by the party in a number of elections.

IPR Research Fellow Chris Berg says the estimates of WiMAX range were overly optimistic when government was considering regional broadband proposals. The awarding of a $950 million in government subsidies to the Optus Elders joint venture Opel were overly optimistic as a result.

Originally, Government claimed WiMAX range could be as high as 70 kilometres – wildly optimistic. It later wound this claim back to 20 kilometres, which IPR says is still far too generous and does not take into account topography.

“When the maps of WiMAX coverage that were paraded around by the Communications Minister after the Opel announcement are redrawn with a more realistic range, the difference is stark,” Mr Berg says.

“A more likely range for the WiMAX deployments would be in the region of five to ten kilometres. To be uncharitable, when considering environmental and topographical factors, a maximum range of as little as one or two kilometres is entirely possible,” he said.

The IPA report also notes that: “The need for a fibre-optic network in Australia is manifestly clear.”

Labor Communications spokesman Stephen Conroy seized on the IPR report, and called on Government to come clean on the real coverage of its broadband plan.

“Only Federal Labor has a plan to drag Australia out of the digital dark ages, ensuring all Australians – including those in rural and regional areas – have improved broadband services at an affordable price,” Senator Conroy said.

“Federal Labor’s network will be open access, creating a competitive framework to drive consumer prices down,” he said.

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Conroy lashes bush broadband plans

THE only promise Federal plans for broadband in the bush will deliver will be “city-comparable prices” for second rate services, shadow communications minister Stephen Conroy says.

Under current plans, Senator Conroy says that by mid-2009 Australia could have wasted $1 billion of taxpayer funds on a sub-standard, two-tier broadband network.

Writing in The Australian newspaper, Senator Conroy attacked the government’s broadband plans, in particular its awarding $958 million in support to the Optus-Elders bush phone joint-venture.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan had misled regional Australians about the likely speed of the OPEL wireless services, Senator Conroy said, quoting speeds only attainable with optimum conditions and without factoring the vast distances and difficult topographies of some remote areas.

The Wimax solution was an inferior option. Senator Conroy also attacked the Minister over the handling of the Broadband Connect tender won by OPEL. He said only OPEL – and not other bidders like Telstra – had been informed that money beyond the $600 million earmarked for the project could be written into bids.

Labor is proposing spending $4.9 billion on a fibre to the node network that would provide superior speeds to both city and regional customers. He said the FTTN proposal would not only give the bush comparable pricing, but comparable services as well.

“Labor has spent the past five months travelling around Australia talking about broadband. Australians in rural and regional areas know the Government is locking them into a sub-standard, second-class system,” Senator Conroy said.

“Far from abandoning broadband in rural and regional Australia, Labor is committed to turning around the poor quality of telecommunications for all Australians, including those in the bush,” he said.

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The political mud flies over CDMA

THE possible closure early next year of the Telstra CDMA mobile phone network has become a lightening rod for political controversy in the heated election-eve environment.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan has accused Labor of abandoning rural and regional phone customers – who rely heavily on the CDMA network – because she says Labor does not support imposing a licensing condition on Telstra to keep the network open.

Telstra has said it wants to shut down the CDMA network early next year, with customers beings transferred to its new Next G phone network.

The sticking point is that government wants to hold Telstra to its promise that the CDMA would not be turned off until Next G provided “equivalent or better” coverage for Australia’s rural and regional users.

“Not only will Labor abolish the $2 billion regional Communications Fund to finance a commercial network in metropolitan areas, but now Labor will be prepared to sit back and potentially leave hundreds of thousands of thousands of regional mobile phone users stranded if Telstra’s Next G network does not provide adequate replication of CDMA coverage and services,” Senator Coonan said.

“Until now Labor has been silent on this important national network transition, but yesterday and today Labor’s communications spokesman Stephen Conroy declared that a licence condition will ‘impose costs on Telstra which provided no meaningful consumer benefit’ and that the initiative ‘actually doesn’t help consumers’,” she said.

Labor communications spokesman Stephen Conroy said Senator Coonan was misleading the public as part of a “desperate tactic” in the run up to the election.

“Labor has consistently stated Telstra would not be allowed to switch off its CDMA network unless it met its promise to the Australian public over coverage and service,” Senator Conroy said in a statement.

“Labor has continually argued for better regulation in the telecommunications sector given Telstra’s market power. However over the past 10 years the number of substantive pages of regulation has increased from 1,602 to 10,013,” he said.

“Examples of wasteful regulation that Labor opposed in parliament was the Government’s operational separation regime, which has increased costs to Telstra with no benefits to consumers.”

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Labor attacks ‘hysterical’ Costello fund claims

GOVERNMENT claims that it private sector will complete building a high-speed national broadband network without taxpayer assistance were fanciful, Labor communications spokesman Stephen Conroy said.

Senator Conroy also attacked Treasurer Peter Costello’s claims that Labor’s plans spend $4.7 billion on a broadband network would leave government unable to meet its superannuation obligations as hysterical.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan’s claim that the private sector would go ahead with building a national broadband network within three years ignored the major telecommunications companies deep concerns about the regulatory system, Senator Conroy said.

“Unfortunately she’s choosing to ignore that Telstra have written to the stock exchange and said that they cannot and will not build the network without significant change in the regulatory settings,” he said.

“G9 the alternative proposal have also said that they will need regulatory change. And Helen Coonan is on the record repeatedly as saying she won’t be changing the regulations until 2009.”

“We’ve said we’ll make the regulatory changes, we’ve said we’ll contribute to the funding of this, because what we want to see is all Australians with access (speeds),” Senator Conroy said

Labor leader Kevin Rudd last week announced a plan to build a 12Mbps fibre to the node network to reach 98 per cent of the population.

He said Government would invest up to $4.7 billion in a joint-venture with the private sector to build the network, using the $2 billion Communications Fund and up to $2.7 billion from the Future Fund to bankroll the project.

The Future Fund was set up as a “locked-box” investment to be used to fund government $90 billion superannuation liability, with budget surpluses tipped into the scheme.

When it was set up government said it expected to cover the liability by 2020 – and Mr Costello argued last week the Labor “smash and grab” plan would leave the Future Fund short.

But Finance Minister Nick Minchin has distanced government from Mr Costello, saying the Future Fund was now expected to meet its targets years early.

“Nick Minchin in this morning’s papers admits that the Future Fund will be reaching its target early and that they will not be putting future surpluses into the Future Fund,” Senator Conroy said.

“What we are seeing at the moment is a bunch of broadband sceptics that just don’t get it,” he said. “John Howard seems to believe that the Great Wall of China was built by the emperor Nasi Goreng to keep the rabbits out.”

“Peter Costello’s attack last week was so desperate, so over the top, that even the fund managers who are looking after the fund have indicated that the fund will meet its surplus and meet its targets. And that’s why Nick Minchin has today belled the cat.”

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ACS enjoys broadband view from the fence

THE Federal election is months away, but it’s already too close to call. So the Australian Computer Society is taking a punt on both parties.

The Coalition government and its Labor opposition might have spent the day savaging each others policies for rolling out a nationwide broadband capability, but the ACS liked what it heard. And it has backed them both.

Forget the stark differences in their approach, the ACS says they’re both right, and is happy enough that there is a debate at all.

The peak professional body for the ICT sector took a seat on the fence – where it could get a comfortable view of the debate – and “welcomed comments on the need for investment into broadband infrastructure from the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator the Helen Coonan and Shadow Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Senator Stephen Conroy.”

“The important point is that equitable and affordable access to broadband is achieved – how that’s achieved is of secondary importance in our view,” ACS chief executive Dennis Furini said.

“We are pleased that both sides of politics maintain a focus on broadband access as a critical national issue and we commend them for moving the issue of broadband infrastructure up the agenda,” he said.

Mr Furini said high speed broadband infrastructure would have a “catalysing effect” on content, product and service innovation.

While welcoming the current debate, the ACS has a more ambitious view of what “high-speed” means – an order of magnitude higher than either political party.

It wants 30Gbps minimum to every Australian household by 2015.

Labor said this week it would invest up to $4.7 billion in a joint-venture with private sector companies to roll out FTTN-based (fibre-to-the-node) 12Mbps broadband access to 98 per cent of the population. The other two per cent – in rural and remote areas – would get access to improved speeds using more appropriate technologies.

Labor says it will pay for the plan by drawing down $2 billion from the Communications Fund, as well as Telstra dividends from the Future Fund, and receipts of further sell-down of Government’s remaining 17 per cent stake in Telstra.

The Coalition recognises the need for improved broadband speeds, but has not mandated what speeds should be and says the market should decide where investments go and what technology – DSL, fibre, wireless or satellite – should be used.

The ACS says it doesn’t care who oversees the roll-out of broadband. It just wants it done.

“Mobile communications and hardware convergence will create new user markets and a market for software and content – areas where Australian ICT is strong and provides leading solutions,” Mr Furini said.

“However without a consistent, reliable, high speed national broadband infrastructure that employs the latest technologies, Australia’s economic growth will suffer,” he said.

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ABS dissects broadband numbers

NEW subscribers are signing up broadband internet services in record numbers despite ongoing user frustration at slow access speeds, an Australian Bureau of Statistics survey has found.

More than 1.8 million more Australians signed up for a broadband internet service in the 18 months from March 2005 to September last year, the ABS found.

The ABS’ Internet Activity Survey – the first time the bureau has investigated online numbers – shows there are now far more broadband customers in Australia (3.91 million) than dial-up users (2.75 million)
Broadband subscribers represent 59 per cent of the total number of Internet subscribers in September 2006 compared to 30 per cent in March 2005.
Communications Minister Helen Coonan said there was increasing demand for broadband internet access as more Australians sought always-on, anywhere access business and entertainment services.
Wireless technology – mobile and fixed – was one of the fastest growing sectors in the broadband access market with nearly five per cent of subscribers now using wireless modems.
“The rapid take-up of broadband internet shows Australians want the latest technologies and infrastructure to support it,” Senator Coonan said.
“But as the increase in take-up of wireless broadband shows, consumers want to access what they need, at a price point they can afford and via a technology that suits their individual needs.
The ABS found there were a total 6.65 million internet subscribers in Australia, including 825,000 businesses and 5.26 million households at the end of September last year.

Labor communications spokesman Stephen Conroy had welcomed the ABS’ plans to study broadband for the first time, but said the report would only highlight that Australia was lagging other developed nations in broadband uptake.

Senator Conroy said Australia was ranked just 17th in an OECD survey of 35 countries for the take-up of 256kbps broadband, and that the World Economic Forum had ranked Australia 25th in terms of available internet bandwidth.

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Metro blackspots program disappears in black hole

MORE than two years after Prime Minister John Howard announced a $50 million fund to improve broadband “blackspots” in metropolitan areas, Government has spent just $200,000 on improvements, according to Labor communications spokesman Stephen Conroy.

Mr Howard announced the $50 million Metropolitan Broadband Blackspots program as part of the 2004 election campaign.

Senator Conroy says government bungling had resulted in $1.3 million being spent on administration costs while just $200,000 had been spent on actual broadband service improvements.

“This incompetent response to the serious problem of providing broadband access in metropolitan areas will be a further frustration to those Australians whom Senator Coonan enraged last year by claiming that ‘no one is complaining’ about broadband speeds in metropolitan Australia,” Senator Conroy said.

The Senate Estimates process had confirmed that Telstra had never participated in the Metropolitan Broadband Blackspots program, despite Communications Minister Helen Coonan’s assurances last year that the company was a participant in “filling these blackspots in metropolitan areas.”

“The Metropolitan Broadband Blackspots program was nothing more than a cheap vote grab hastily cobbed together during the 2004 election campaign. Australians without access to broadband deserve better than cynical election stunts from the Howard government,” Senator Conroy said.

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