On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 10:40 AM, Ken Schaefer <[email protected]> wrote:
> <lots of snippage> > > This is all implementation detail as far as I can tell. You don’t know for > a certainty that this is how it’ll play out for 20 years, and you should > know, from your own examples of what has happened over the past 20 years, > that it’s very **unlikely** to be the end-state. **** > > PS Your pitch is 1/3 good. Most NBN "arguments from analogy" I've been > given involve roads and the F/35 + Colin's Class sub, not water and > sewerage. **** > > I studied economics at Uni – natural monopoly and the problems arising are > well known: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly**** > > The issue is: “What to do about it?” and as I said, most natural > monopolies are either run by the government, or regulated industries. > Otherwise competition simply doesn’t arise, except in small pockets where > secondary competitor can “cherry pick” profitable customers (leaving the > vast mass of customers to the mercy of the monopolist) e.g. like being able > to buy fibre in the Brisbane CBD that you mentioned in your post – > certainly there isn’t any running anywhere near my house in inner city > Sydney.**** > > Obviously you feel, based on implementation details, that we’re not > getting a good deal.**** > > I have a different opinion, that natural monopolies like roads and > transmission networks either need to be built by the government, or built > in a regulated environment (e.g. public/private partnerships etc. that you > see). And certain things, like local roads, fire stations etc. have a too > uncertain pay off for private enterprise to build – it’s simply better for > the local council to build those roads and fund it through general levies. > **** > > Based on what I’ve seen happen to the economy through cheaper and > ubiquitous internet access over the past 20 years, I’m willing to bet that > providing universal, and upgradeable, fast internet access will make the > next 20 years even more of an economic tectonic shift. You seem to be more > concerned about what format your bill will arrive in. > So why is it that today I can run a 20 mbps link at home red hot with Internode local services for $69 a month but on the NBN if I did the same it would *cost *Internode $500 in wholesale fees to deliver the same... ? Calling $20K a month of CVC charges for running a 1gbps link hot is one hell of "an implementation detail". Remember when you wanted to get a 2mbps backhaul for an ISP in 1995 and your *ONLY* option was 30K a year for DDSfastway if Telstra could be arsed taking your call? That was the last time we had a government monopoly. The only reason we have the improvements we have today is because of low impact building access as defined in the Telecommunications act. The key promises of the NBN are doing all of this fancy high bandwidth stuff just aren't possible. Not possible in their pricing book. Not possible in their corporate plan. Not possible given that the NBN is allegedly an investment that will generate a decent return. Ask anyone in the dc/transit business what they think about the NBN CVC charges behind closed doors and you'll get a pretty rapid education in commercial reality.
