Broadband prices set to rise in Australia
While DSL is getting cheaper in the US, because AT&T cut DSL prices to $12.99 USD, Australian broadband users are set to face a hike in broadband internet prices.
According to Sydney Morning Herald article, Telstra announced yesterday it would increase the price it charges its competitors to access the copper lines between households and telephone exchanges.
Ouch, that sucks!
1. Ronny 7 Feb 2006
Bloody Telstra. I somehow have little respect for telecom companies that have “Tel” as the first part of their names, like Telstra and Telkom (Indonesian), especially if they’re state owned and owns most of the infrastructure in the country. It really sucks big time.
2. Alan 28 Apr 2007
What people fail realise is that when parts of Telstra are being sold off, the government is selling the countries assets. The most of the telecommunications infrastructure in Australia has been paid for by the country’s citizens over many years and the profits from Telstra where being channelled back into general government revenue. Now the government sells of parts of the only county wide telecommunications company back to the citizens (and others) of Australia. This means essentially we are buying shares in a company we already own, it is one of the biggest con jobs ever that has been perpetrated by our government. It is the equivalent of selling snow to Eskimos, but I doubt the Eskimos would have been so gullible.
You have to ask some very difficult questions about why the Australian government would put the country it a position where if Telstra was made insolvent tomorrow, millions of Australians would lose there shirts and either the country will have to bail out Telstra or sell it of to a multinational company. The later scenario would cause great hardship for the country and essentially put most of a telecommunications infrastructure in the hands of foreign government or organisation.
In America this could not happen because telecommunications infrastructure is considered to be essential to the security of the country, and as such they (The American government) have strict rules to insure that if one telecommunications company (for what ever reasons) that no longer deliver services it cannot cause a situation where the country is put at risk. They do this by insuring that no one company has a monopoly that can put the country in jeopardy, and if there are services that can be a partial risk to services their tightly regulated by the government (either owned or underwritten).