Telstra?
I sat next to someone on a plane recently who told me to look into the Telstra story. It seems that Sol Trujillo announced last year that Telstra would build a $3 billion fiber network — but only if the company had ”regulatory certainty”. Sound familiar? Then today Dave Burstein sent around a snippet saying that Australia's Communications Minister is supporting the notion that nine carriers should build a broadband network that would compete with Telstra's planned fiber network. (The Australian government owns more than half of Telstra, which adds an interesting dimension to this story.)
A somehwhat snarky story by Stephen Bartholomeusz in the Sydney Morning Herald pooh-poohs the competitive idea. The competitors would have to build on top of Telstra's existing copper network, so Telstra could strand them by simply building their replacement fiber network (access to which Telstra would never provide its competitors, according to Bartholomeusz).
It's hard to tell from this distance what exactly is going on. If the Communications Minister wants to separate Telstra's wholesale from retail services, that seems to be an invitation to gleeful gameplaying on the part of the incumbent. It's awfully hard (this happened in the UK) to make this kind of abstract packaging result in real competition. On the other hand, the Minister may want to impose something stronger.
I always listen to the prophetic things strangers tell me on planes. The Telstra story is full of drama and prompts reporters to say things like “it's back to rock-throwing.”
Telecommunications law in the U.S. used to be about serving the public interest by breaking up monopolies and assuring communication. Now it seems to be mostly about protecting the investments of incumbents. The monopolies are steadily re-combining. All of this has enormous societal and economic effects. Is this reframed purpose actually serving the public interest? Perhaps the Australian Communications Minister can clue us in.
Thanks to Dave Burstein for the pointer.