I know this is not a popular issue, but I also reckon that if Telstra continues to spread its FUD campaign (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt), John Howard will step in and call T3 off. One could even question if Telstra is actively assisting in the collapse of T3?
The fear campaign is squarely aimed at the National Party, where there is, understandably, a great deal of anxiety about Telstra’s aggressive stand.
While I believe that, for the most part, Telstra is bluffing – and this has also been reported by some of the financial analysts – the incumbent is certainly slowing progress right down, which is not good for the country. It certainly is not in Telstra’s interest to undermine its own home market, from which comes close to 100% of its revenues and profits.
Sol has already indicated that the company has underinvested in its network over the last five years (my estimate is over the last 10-15 years). If the company continues on that course it gets further and further behind; it will see more competitors eating away at its core business; and at the same time the government will have to come up with more regulations to protect the alternative, competitive developments from Telstra’s predatory behaviour.
Is this the outcome Telstra wants? Is Telstra so worried about its financial situation that it doesn’t want T3 to happen or is it perhaps worried it will be unable to manage a fully privatised Telstra? How else can you explain their current attitude which is clearly undermining T3?
Why not get on with the job? Telstra should look at its counterparts in Europe – they seem to be able to operate in a similar environment without all the fuss Telstra is creating.
While I would be the last to underestimate Telstra’s market power, at the same time I also know that we no longer live in the 1990s, when Telstra was simply able to overbuild competitors’ networks and make them economically unviable, as they did with the Optus HFC roll-out.
However, Telstra’s relentless bullying on the issues of regulation, competition and new network investment is creating a very uncertain environment for the country. Telecommunications is too important for the nation to allow it to be held to ransom by one company whose only interest is in making profit.
These are clear warning signs for our politicians. We now know very well what Telstra’s position is on issues of national interest, competition and regional investment. Politicians can’t just put their heads in the sand. It becomes clearer and clearer that ironclad guarantees need to be in place before T3 proceeds any further. Telstra has made its position very clear on these issues, so it would be unrealistic to expect that it will look after telecoms beyond the goal of earning a healthy profit to its (new) shareholders – and even there it is not happy with the current situation. It looks as though Telstra wants the government to underwrite an annual profit for the company in the vicinity of $4 billion before the company is prepared to move ahead. I don’t know of any other company in the world that asks for such a ridiculous guarantee.
I start sounding like a broken record, but with issues such as regulations and investments I can see Telstra’s viewpoints but unless the company is prepared to sit down with the industry to discuss this there is little hope for a more sensible solution.
Before T3 happens I would like to see a full implementation of the government’s operational separation policy – not just the promise of it – as under the current circumstances this could take more than five years to implement. Furthermore, we need to see the real effect of the government’s first $1 billion investment in regional infrastructure. Initiatives like the Minister’s recently launched alternative wholesale access network are great, but can it be implemented without Telstra being prevented from undermining it? Again, operational separation will be the key to put some ground rules in place here. The last thing anyone wants to see is a total waste of this $1 billion because of Telstra’s stand on these issues.
These are very uncertain times for telecommunications. While the government is standing firm on its policies, a totally uncooperative Telstra is going to make any implementation of these policies nearly impossible. So that means the government will need to reassess its position and check how firm its implementation plan really is before anything more is done, both in relation to T3 and in relation to the allocation of valuable government funds (taxpayers’ money).
Paul Budde
See also: Government Policies Australia
2. The $US5 Report of the Week 2.1 Australia – Digital Media – Overview and Analysis Government Plans March 2006
(This report will remain at US$5 until the 27/03/06) After a decade of failed media policies there was a lot of anticipation regarding the new plans launched by the government in March 2006. Unfortunately they turned out to be a major disappointment. Rather than coming up with an innovative approach to media convergence and digital media the government continued its decade-long policy of old media protection. They even want to wind the clock further back, with fresh regulations aimed at limiting IPTV and Mobile TV.
Table of Contents:
* Prelude * Government review in November 2005 * Government review by House of Representatives in February 2006 * Proposed media reforms * Overview * New services on spare spectrum and other platforms * Multi-channelling and anti-siphoning * Media ownership and control * Regional services protection * Analysis of government review on media reforms * Disappointing media policy options * Don’t buy your digital TV yet * Digital TV policy could cost the government $1 billion * International IPTV embarassment * Policies and Regulations 1996-2006 – Historical Data
See: Australia – Digital Media – Overview and Analysis Government Plans March 2006
3. Minister Helen Coonan will address the Oz-Dutch Broadband Roundtable
Good news, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator the Hon Helen Coonan, has accepted the invitation to attend and address the Dutch - Australian Broadband Roundtable.
The Netherlands Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, who is also the chairman of the Innovation Platform in the Netherlands, will also give a presentation at this Roundtable about ICT, Broadband and Innovation.
The Netherlands has the second-highest penetration of broadband in the world and is a leader in digital media developments (e.g. Premier League football is also available on broadband TV in the Netherlands). The Netherlands is also the leader in fibre-to-the-home deployment in Europe. These topics will be addressed at the Roundtable. For more info see: Netherlands – Australia Broadband Roundtable
I am organising this event together with the Dutch Government There are only a few places left at the event and if you are interested to participate in the Roundtable please let me know and I will put you on the invitation list. Depending on availability, personal invitations will be sent out by the Netherlands Ambassador.
4. Competitive wholesale access network
In March 2006 the Minister launched her wholesale infrastructure initiative. She is urging the industry to come up with a business plan for a regional infrastructure plan, linked to an open access network approach.
The Minister clearly wants to pull together all of these initiatives and subsequent developments, and is prepared to put a very significant amount of money into the project.
The solutions the Minister is looking for include:
* Raising the bar, more innovation, higher speeds, etc * Market-based outcomes for regional solutions (commitment to the region) * Facilitating e-health, education and other government initiatives (commitment from the government)
Last week I brought the industry together in an attempt to start working on industry cooperation and the outcomes of this meeting are in Paul’s Desk
See also: Australia - Industry - Wholesale Services - 2006
5. Foxtel worries about broadband
What makes the presentation by Foxtel’s CEO interesting is the fact that, as far as I know, this is the first time he has admitted the possibility of cross-industry competition, which will affect the pay TV business.
I have been making this observation for many years, but Foxtel has always rejected the possibility that competition could cross over from broadband, as it perceived itself to be operating in a totally different market.
I feel that it is the responsibility of the CEO of any company to address these issues rather than adopt a head-in-the-sand approach, as if convergence doesn’t affect their business. And Kim Williams’ comments have finally opened up the very private level of discussion that is taking place in Foxtel/Telstra circles regarding the overlapping strategies of:
* Foxtel * Telstra BigPond * Sensis
So the first cracks are beginning to show.
It is patently obviously that Telstra’s conflicting interests are hurting Foxtel, and that it has just been silly for it to deny the existence of the problem. However, rather than criticising Telstra, Kim concentrated on arguing for the possibility of Internet-based content regulations and/or a relaxation of pay TV regulations.
However, to date, the arguments put forward by the broadcasters – both FtA and pay TV – have all been focused in one direction. They want to see a relaxation of the regulations affecting their particular industry, but don’t want to see the regulator doing any favours to their colleagues in another subset of this industry. Given this narrow-minded approach, it is almost impossible for the government to move on substantial media reforms. Instead, these ageing TV concepts might suffer a slow death under the emergence of alternative digital media, which are more customer-friendly, and which are based on better business models.
It is no secret that I am a great advocate for a divestiture of Foxtel, freeing it up to set its own course in the converging market. Kim has certainly created a new gateway for debate – let’s hope that this will contribute to a more sensible industry stance on these issues of media convergence.
Paul Budde
See also: Australia - Broadcasting Pay TV
6. Dutch – Australian Broadband Roundtable – invite
I am delighted to be able to introduce this high-level Dutch-Australian Broadband Roundtable to you.
It will take place on 5 April 2006, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Sydney, and will be hosted by the Dutch Government.
It will be exciting to have both the Dutch Prime Minister and the Australian Minister for Communications present at this event. And I am particularly looking forward to facilitating a discussion between my Dutch and Australian colleagues on the subject of broadband developments.
The Netherlands has the second-highest broadband penetration in the world – it leads Europe in FttH, and the Dutch Premium Football League is only available on IPTV. Its leading newspaper De Telegraaf has a very impressive New Media section – there will be a presentation from a representative of this publication at the Roundtable.
Furthermore, my country of birth being renowned for its social policies, some very interesting broadband and other healthcare ICT developments will be discussed. Top experts from the Netherlands in infrastructure, applications and healthcare will participate.
I would very much like to invite you to this unique event. If you are interested, please send me a return email and an official invitation will then be sent to you by the Dutch Ambassador.
Pls click here for the provisional program for the Roundtable.
I look forward to meeting you at the Roundtable.
Paul Budde
7. Wireless broadband battles: WiMAX vs. 3G HSPDA
Roundtable Workshop with Paul Budde and wireless broadband experts – 19th April 2006
With Intel’s investment in Unwired and the alliance with Austar we expect a wireless broadband to boom in Australia. On the other side Telstra’s new UMTS 850 network is totally 3G HSDPA based - ready for broadband delivery later on this year and the company is already planning for the Super 3G evolution.
WiMAX initially launched itself as a potential alternative to fixed broadband services. There are still opportunities to challenge fixed networks in niche markets and regional markets; the government’s regional fund is certainly going to boost these developments.
However, the next big opportunity is to develop a 4G solution, combining mobile technologies and wireless technologies to address markets such as wireless data, telemetry, RFID and a range of new personal broadband services that will emerge around this 4G concept.
We predict that 3G and HSDPA are just stepping stones to a deployment of true wireless broadband in late 2007. Will Super 3G (100Mb/s) here finally merge with WiMax?
This will create a totally new infrastructure well beyond the current fixed and mobile limitations. Together with new developments in consumer electronic devices, increased storage and parallel processing, the wireless personal broadband network will become the core of a new phenomenon which I call the AI (artificial intelligent) network brain; linking people, devices, data bases, networks, services and applications all together in an integrated, interactive wireless environment. Still a few years to go but we surely are starting to see the new direction this market is taking.
This event is a must for all of you who want to be part of the wireless broadband bonanza. I will explain this further at the Roundtable
Cost:
$395 per person (excluding GST) - this includes morning/afternoon coffee and lunch
Five new reports on Digital Broadcasting together with three new reports on Audio Visual Coding provide a detailed overview of these fast-expanding and inter-related fields.
Digital Broadcasting encompasses sound, video and a variety of interactive applications. Receivers include those in traditional home or car settings, with an increasing emphasis on mobile devices, including cell-phones.
We begin by outlining the established analogue transmission systems, their radio spectrum allocations and the propagation of these signals and of the higher frequencies used exclusively for digital broadcasting.
We outline some major trends in Digital Broadcasting, including:
* flexibility of storage and playback, * relative freedom from single transmitter propagation constraints, * lower cost of entry for wide geographic coverage, * linkage to Internet applications including e-commerce and * the increased ability to control access to paying customers, which is challenged by home storage and networking technologies.
We describe the key technical characteristics of satellite and terrestrial DVB video broadcasting and of the Japanese ISDB system. These are contrasted with the North American ATSC digital video system, which does not enable single-frequency network coverage of large areas, or a significant increase in programming capacity. We consider some of the difficult choices facing digital television broadcasters in choosing an operating system for their digital receivers, and how this locks all their programming to that format.
We contrast the well-established broadband Digital Audio Broadcasting techniques with the North American narrowband In Band On Channel techniques which use the existing AM and FM bands. We also describe Digital Radio Mondaile, the two commercially successful North American satellite broadcasters Sirius and XM, and the lesser known WorldSpace satellite system. Narrowband narrowband FM-based systems for traffic reports, and Microsoft''s innovative wristwatch-based DirectBand service are also discussed.
The final part of our Digital Broadcasting report critically examines and compares the open and proprietary technologies vying for dominance in the new field of broadcasting to handheld mobile devices. These are:
* DVB-H, T-DMB (based on Eureka 147 Digital Audio Broadcasting), * Japan''s ISDB-Tsb, * the Japanese and Korean MBSAT service and * Qualcomm''s specially developed MediaFlo.
The success of these technologies depends on a number of conflicting constraints, including the needs for small receiver size and power consumption, high bandwidth, large transmitter range, and reliable reception at vehicular speeds, indoors and in the presence of multi-path reception - all with a small antennae. Our detailed description builds on the principles covered in previous sections so that technical and non-technical readers can develop a good sense of the challenges which must be overcome in order for Mobile Digital Broadcasting to succeed.
Underlying all digital broadcasting is the data compression, streaming and synchronisation technologies known as Audio Visual Coding. Our report on these technologies surveys the entire field, with special emphasis on MPEG-2 video, MP3 and AAC sound, MPEG-4 and AVC (Advanced Video Coding). We provide a detailed description of the principles of MP3 compression and of the key techniques which distinguish MPEG-2 and AVC.
Our discussion of MPEG-4 is necessarily extensive, because this suite of standards supports such a wide variety of communication modes, many of them never before possible, including VRML modelling, sound synthesis, Java applications in the MPEG-4 decoder and many more - all of which can be synchronised and made to work in new combinations in a fully interactive manner.
We believe that a good understanding of MPEG-4 is as vital to understanding the mass-market communications developments of the next ten years as an understanding of HTML and basic Internet communications was to understanding the developments since 1995.
The importance of Audio Visual Coding, including speech compression, goes beyond Digital Broadcasting - it is the basis of all Internet conferencing and streaming applications as well as the stored-on-disc and download-based music and video industries.
In these reports, we aim to provide the interested - but not necessarily technically experienced - reader with a good overview of these vital areas of communication technology. With specific details and examples to enliven and illuminate the necessarily broad sweep of these reviews, our reports support the reader in understanding the principles of, and distinctions between, a wide variety of important technologies.
For more information see: Digital Broadcasting and Video Technologies
See Also... New articles in E-Newsletters Asia Telecoms & Broadband - Asia - Shin share sale controversy continuing - Thailand’s operators fight over revenue - CellTel Lanka moving into North East Region
Europe Telecoms & Broadband - Eastern & Western Europe - CityNet Amsterdam - Kenniswijk - Eindhoven Smart City Project - Irish use SMS as information gateway
USA & Canada Telecoms & Broadband - USA & Canada - The largest US telco merger looms - Bell and Aliant join the merger mania - Canadian wireless number portability within a year
International (Global Issues) International - Mobile Communications & Data - Forecast for W-CDMA RAN equipment - Wearable wireless - Z-SIM
International - Broadband - OECD Report on WiMAX - WLAN switch and controller market - Growing broke with broadband
International - Convergence and Digital TV - Democracy video Player and TV systems - Counteracting ad skipping - DVRs Rock
Updated Research Reports Asia Kazakhstan - Telecoms Market Overview & Statistics Kazakhstan has a relatively strong fixed-line penetration of around 16%. However, the country’s original infrastructure is generally in a poor state and there has been high unsatisfied demand with a 2-3 year waiting time reported. National operator, Kazakhtelecom, has been modernising the country’s telecoms system.
China - Key Statistics, Telecom Market Overview & Analysis The Chinese telecom market is the largest in the world. China is making real strides in becoming an advanced telecommunications market. Telecommunications development figures prominently in the nation’s priority scheme as China readies itself for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
China - Infrastructure - IP Networks The major carriers in China have been vigorous in their embrace of Internet Protocol (IP) and have been busy building the infrastructure to support a wide range of IP services. It comes as no surprise that, consistent with its huge fixed and mobile subscriber bases, China already has the largest number of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) users in the world. At the same time, it is keen to protect this market from outside intrusion.
Europe Greece - Telecoms Market Overview, Statistics & Forecasts Most of Greece’s telecoms market is considerably less developed than that of western European countries, but penetration levels are high in the mobile sector. Three of the operators have launched 3G services, and growth in take-up in 2005 was one of the strongest in Europe. Alternative operators have begun to make inroads in the fixed-line sector but the incumbent OTE still dominates the market.
Poland - Telecoms Market Overview & Statistics This report provides a concise overview of telecommunications in Poland. Regulatory developments as part of Poland’s accession to the EU are covered. The introduction of competition has yet to make much impression on incumbent TPSA’s majority market share in the fixed-line voice and Internet access markets.
Hungary - Telecoms Market Overview & Statistics This report provides an overview of Hungary’s telecom market in 2005. Hungary was early to deregulate its telecoms market but interconnection and loop unbundling disputes delayed full and effective competition. Fixed-line numbers are now falling and growth in the very competitive mobile market has also slowed but this is likely to change with the launch of third generation services.
USA & Canada USA - Convergence - Triple Play IP packet-switched technology enables voice, data and video communications to be carried over the same network. In the US, this has caused the convergence of the wireline and pay TV industries. The RBOCs and MSOs compete to be chosen as the pipeline into the home to deliver triple play services.
Canada - Mobile Communications - Overview & Statistics Mobile services have grown quickly, with access to networks now available to over 95% of Canada’s population, and half of all Canadians now use a mobile service. The sector comprises four key players – Rogers AT&T Wireless, Bell Mobility and its associated Bell Wireless Alliance, TELUS Mobility and Microcell, which was acquired by Rogers Wireless in November 2004. In addition there are a number of minor providers which serve smaller cities and communities.
Canada - Key Statistics, Telecom Market & Regulatory Overviews The Canadian telecom services environment developed in stages, from a closed monopoly environment until the early nineties, to a mostly open, competitive environment in 2005. Canada’s telecommunications sector is among the most advanced in the world. Intense competition has led to service innovation, falling prices and significant industry restructuring.
International (Global Issues) Global - Utilities - Powerline - Projects and Pilots Power utilities around the world are recognising the natural competitive advantage they have in telecommunications. This comes from the use of infrastructure they have in place (ducting, building access, poles), their systems (billing, call centres), a strong relationship with and an understanding of a large customer base, and a core competency in network management and maintenance. It is a natural extension of business activity for a power company to enter into telecommunications.
Global - Utilities - Powerline - Trends and Developments in 2005 Three critical developments: the explosion of electricity and the essential role electricity plays in the IT economy; the multi-utility role of the players in this market, potentially offering alternative national broadband networks and powerline technologies as an alternative telecommunications infrastructure technology.
Global - Broadcasting - Analysis - Digital Pay TV market in 2006 Oddly enough, broadcasting is one of the last bastions of the analogue technologies. The industry has been slow to embrace digital technologies, since many of the media barons feared that this would open the market up to more competition. Digital broadcasting has more to do with access to new services than with content.
PAUL BUDDE Communication Pty Ltd, T/As BuddeComm 5385 George Downes Drive BUCKETTY NSW 2250B, Ph 02 49 988 144 (international x 61 2 4998 8144) Fx 02 49 988 247 (international x 61 2 4998 8247) mailto:[email protected]. http://www.budde.com.au BuddeComm operates the largest, continually updated, telecommunications research service on the Net
