One of the more fiery segments of Chris Anderson’s presentation on his book The Long Tail at ALA was when several audience-members, during question time, refuted his assumption that the market would take care of access to telecommunications services, including broadband.
As if yet more proof was needed that the market doesn’t solve these problems, in the past two days Telstra announced that talks with the ACCC had broken down regarding competitor access to Telstra’s proposed $4bn investment in a new high-speed broadband network.
According to Communications Minister, Helen Coonan, that’s no problem:
“She told ABC TV’s The 7.30 Report that most Australians are content with things as they are.
“Currently no one is complaining about their speed of broadband in metropolitan areas,” she said.
“Well they ought to be (happy) in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, certainly and Perth,” she said.
“They should be reasonably happy with their speed of broadband, if they have ADSL 2 Plus.” (Coonan ‘deluded’ over Internet satisfaction)
Except of course, even in inner-city areas where I live, you can’t get ADSL2 because the lines are either full (over-subscribed) or you are considered to live too far from the exchange.
So, what was that about the market?
Yeh I have to agree - the minister is deluded and out of touch. I know many people who want broadband and can’t get it, and they’re in the Perth metropolitan area. And don’t even start with country areas (I’m thinking of my rellies in the WA wheatbelt who would LOVE to have better access and have no options).
I think the net should be considered as part of this country’s essential telecommunications infrastructure and it’s a mistake to leave it to “the market” (which to me tends to focus more on companies and their shareholders, rather than ordinary consumers).
This whole business is pretty poorly reported, too. I think the media really has gone to sleep in this country, as Doc Hewson told Andrew Denton the other week.
In the States, as you would know, Fiona, there were huge concerns over efforts by the telcos to privatise parts of the Internet infrastructure last year - see here. I suppose country people in Australia are so used to paying more for essential services they would just sigh and cough up the extra money if a similar scenario unfolded here. Which makes me want to cry.
Oh rats, my link is not so good ( I think I left out a space somewhere). Here’s the full URL, let’s see how that goes.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=179103510