| The NBN...Telstra can’t lose now! |
19/07/2010
A friend of ours was at the Communications Alliance and CommsDay Awards 2010 held recently.
Everyone in the industry was there including Senator Lundy and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. Our friend was talking to a senior member of a decent sized Telco. This exec had 20+ years of industry experience. Everyone was talking the NBN and this conversation was no different. This exec had a very interesting theory on Telstra’s NBN strategy. Now that Telstra has a nice piece of change from the Heads of Agreement they are protected from the NBN to a degree. In the agreement there is no mention that Telstra can’t compete with the NBN. One would think that now Telstra has a agreement in place why would they want to compete?
Here’s the theory put forth by the exec. With Telstra’s track record and policies of the past, it actually makes sense. Before we get into that, it should be pointed out Telstra has no interest in the NBN succeeding. They sit on a monopoly and companies that have monopolies want nothing to do with anything that interferes with that. Even if it means the betterment of the country. Then again if you or I owned Telstra, we’d probably feel the same way. We’ll get to that in a minute.
So here we go…we are building the NBN and everything is great. Taxpayer money flow like a river after the dam broke. Our exec point out one asset Telstra has that everyone’s overlooked. Data. The bottom line is the NBNco is a business that needs to give a return. In the Telco business the 80/20 rule applies also. There is a large, very profitable base of customers in Australia and Telstra knows where every single one is. They also know where the un-profitable customers are. With the NBN, Telstra can still lay fibre themselves. At a cost but, they don’t have to re-wire all of Australia. If 40 billion is the price tag to do 90% of Australia. 5 billion seems a respectable guess to re-wire say…the CBDs or business parks, where the most profitable customers are?
A interesting side note: Austar’s parent company American Chairmen was in Australia a few months ago. This is someone who runs 16+ cable businesses around that offer voice and data all around the world. So he’d have some interesting insight. When asked about the NBN he said he didn’t understand the need for such a large amount to be spent? He said the Telstra could upgrade their cable footprint to 100 Mbps for 200 million. I’m not sure of the exact percentage but Telstra’s cable passes 30-40% of Australian homes.
Ok, it’s 2018 and you run a small office with 40 staff. A NBN reseller knocks on the door (Remember, the NBNco will just wholesale, no retail) and says you can get a 100Mbps connect for $150. (We aren’t even going to talk about the $5,000 a month they spend on their phone bill.) This replaces your $400 SHDSL connection. Wow, you run to cancel your expensive Telstra account. Then Telstra says… we put fibre in your street last month. We can do the same deal for $140 plus give you $2000 credit on your phone bill on a 24 month plan for being a long term customer.
You get the idea. Telstra may sit back and let the NBNco re-wire Australia while they cherry pick the profitable areas. All the while getting paid for the NBN taking over the un-profitable areas. It’s a clever strategy and it’s the way I would play it, if I owned Telstra. What would you do if you owned Telstra?
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The NBN is already here. |
If you're like us, you've had a earful of this NBN (National Broadband Network) . What is it? Why do we need it? Why does it cost so much?
All good questions. The NBN or FTTN (Fibre to the Node) is the government’s attempt to bring Australia’s broadband out of the dark ages. I didn't know it was but if someone says so, it must be. The reason it costs so much is because some serious rewiring is required. I guess if Google's streetview vans can drive down every street in Australia, how hard could a little old NBN be?
We aren't going to bore you with another NBN "why we need it” story. Let's look at some facts instead. First of all, Australia doesn't have it that bad. No, we aren't Korea or Japan. (I don't know about you but, I will tell you I'm getting tried of hearing how fast Korea's broadband is). We are Australia and we have our own containment. We aren't jam packed into 200 square kilometers. Let's face it, we have space issues.
Also, has anyone asked what the average Australian Internet user wants? There are millions of families still happily using dial-up. Some people, believe it or not, only do a bit of surfing every few days. Some check email once a week. These people don't need 50MBPS. They probably don't even know what it is. What they should have is at least a 512k service that's always on. If someone wants more or greater speeds, they can pay for it.
That leads us to our next point. Who decided we needed to spend $5-10 billion in taxpayer money on this NBN anyway? Ok, it looks like the government is pretty keen of spending the $5 billion. What is the goal again? Every house get's a fast connection? Well let's throw something out there. What if we told you the NBN was already there.
Telstra had ADSL2+ in 1400+ exchanges. That's a fast big network. Why was it built?. To keep the rabbits out, of course. Or to make money.
They also have arguably the best 3G/Next Gen wireless broadband network out there. You know..."I've been everywhere, man".
We don't know exactly how much those 2 networks cost over the past 5+ years to build but if you look at the average DLSAM cost and what some wireless networks cost and Telstra's financial capacity you could guess between $5-10 billion. (Telstra can correct us if we are wrong) . They paid for it. It's their network and they have every right to get a return on that.
We could sit here and debate how much of that money that was spent on the 2 networks came from the profits of the infrastructure that was built 10-50 years ago while the company was in taxpayers hands. We could, but instead we’ll try and think of Telstra in a warm fuzzy way.
Let's do some numbers. This is of course all in lala land but, it could happen and does on the outside make sense.
Telstra puts their ADSL2+ and 3G network into a separate company. They are paid a large dollar amount for this by the government. The other NBN bidders (including Telstra) would buy equity stakes in this super broadband network (maybe this would be the large payment that Telstra receives?) Then the government comes along and puts their 5 billion cash in this company under the condition that a port (ADSL2+ or wireless is sold at a cheap subsidized price. Say $12 for a ADSL2+ or a $20 for wireless.) If ADSL isn't in an area then the $12 port cost would apply to wireless. The assumption would be that these would be regional/rural areas.
The math would go something like this:
5 billion divided by 10 years is 500 million. (interest would build on the 5 billion so that we could get a couple more years of subsidies.)
A normal port cost currently is in the mid $20s for ADSL1. Probably much higher for ADSL2+ and 3G. You'd have at least 5 million home connections being subsided. That's a $10 discount.
The consumer would/should pay at least $20 for this basic 512k speed with 2GB of data. Any families with kids or low income would receive discounts paid for by the government to lower the price even further.
The Internet for children today is a blessing. The amount of knowledge you can find is amazing. Google, Wikipedia, howthingswork and eBay (sorry). We believe that kids, properly supervised, can learn more today with a fast video connection than a child 10 years ago. It's a shame that any child today should be looking up information on a dial-up connection. Imagine what the kids of tomorrow as a group can learn with computers compared to kids 20 years ago. Why is the sky blue? I have no idea. Google it.
This is a very loose suggestion and not feasible on the outside. What about mobiles? What about the other companies’ networks? Does this idea support innovation? These question make this idea unworkable.
If you add up the Telstra current ADSL2+ and wireless Next Gen area,how much of Australia does the this cover? 80% 95% ? Maybe the government should spend another billion to get as close to 99% as possible.
There are many reasons why this idea would never float. However, the fact remains that the 2 networks Telstra have built currently offer high speed Internet to millions of Australians. Could the 5 billion being pushed at the NBN help subsidise access to that? Yes.
ADSL2exchanges staff writers.
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