policies? I always thought Australians had a libertarian, stay out of my way attitude towards their government. I guess I was mistaken.
There's a federal election in Australia on the 21st of this month. And one of the top 5 issues is actually the internet. The government is promising censorship (protect the children, 'why shouldn't we regulate the internet as heavily as TV' etc) and a 1 gigabit fibre optic network for 93% of Australian houses (all except those in the outback basically). Opposition is opposing both of these policies. And is instead proposing a wireless broadband network instead of fibre, wimax and LTE. Frankly that's also a woeful internet policy. Kind of idiotic, to think wireless can replace wired. But apparently it's a lot cheaper and all they care about is reducing the deficit.
Here's the thing. Telstra is the main telecommunications company here. They own the cable network, copper phone network and are the countries largest ISP. And one of the largest mobile network operators, with 850mhz 3G covering 99% of the population, with HSPA+ at up to 42mbit speeds. They cover a very large portion of the outback and their total network area is 3 times the size of the state of Texas. They are a $25b company, which is massive for a country of only 22 million.
They have been very worried about losing revenue and share price as people move away from landlands to mobiles. Hence years ago they were trying to build a fibre to the node network. Problem is though, their size is a concern, it's of a monopoly level. So they are closely monitored and regulated by the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission). Who refused to allow Telstra to have exclusivity over the infrastructure if they built it or to be able to set their own pricing. As the ACCC refused to give them different rules to what they had for the copper network, Telstra decided against building it. So now we have a situation where the government is building out an expensive fibre network with a government owned company. And the opposition, who might win, are threatening to shut it down and cancel the project if they win.

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