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52 Wire & Cable ASIA –March/April 2014
Telecomnews
To rent or to buy: Telstra’s
‘physical copper’ is a
source of dissension in
the run-up to a national
broadband network for
Australia
In December, the Australian Financial
Review disclosed that competitors of
Telstra, the largest Australian carrier,
had opposed a proposal by NBN Co
Accurate data on indicators like network access, service affordability and
connection speeds is increasingly recognised as essential to every nation’s
plans for economic growth and social development. Delegates to the 2013
World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium (WTIS), held 4th to 6th
December in Mexico City, endorsed the need to strengthen and adapt the
way data on information and communication technologies (ICT) is collected
to better meet the needs of today’s fast-evolving environment.
Organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the annual
event is considered the single most important meeting of ICT data experts
from around the world. The 300-plus delegates to the symposium, hosted
this time by the Mexican telecommunications regulator, included government
ministers, industry CEOs, and heads of national and international statistics
agencies.
In his opening remarks to the conference, Luis Lucatero, the WTIS chair and
Mexico’s chief of regulatory policy, identified “information asymmetry” as the
biggest enemy of investment. An ICT regulator is, he said, “like an architect,
building a strong and robust market that ultimately serves as a platform for
national growth across all business sectors.”
The opening day of the conference also featured three high-level debates
centred on post-2015 development frameworks, the role of monitoring
in building tomorrow’s information society, and strategies for enhancing
multi-stakeholder dialogue and national coordination in data collection.
Following the lead of the ITU, a Geneva-based UN agency, the delegates
pledged their efforts to extend ICT data collection capabilities through new
partnerships between the tech industry and government agencies. Two
side events reflected this impetus. One presented Costa Rica’s national
approach to data collection in partnership with ICT operators; the other,
the development and implementation by Iran of a new data measurement
system.
Ø The ITU secretary-general, Hamadoun I Touré, declared in his closing
address that the ICT sector is evolving faster than any sector in human
history. As reported on CIOL.com, the Indian technology business
website, Dr Touré stressed the urgent challenge of measuring the
rapid evolution of the sector, and of ensuring that ICT data, statistics
and indicators are “internationally harmonised and internationally
comparable.” (“World Leaders Call for More Timely, Harmonized Data on
Global ICT Access and Affordability,” 7th December).
Only by doing this, the ITU head cautioned, “can we paint a clear, impartial
and — most importantly — universal picture that will enable us to make
meaningful comparisons and track the evolution of the ICT ecosystem.”
International Telecommunication Union urges better
data collection on ICT, the ‘fastest-evolving sector in
human history’
to rent, rather than buy, access to
Telstra’s copper network to facilitate
the rollout of the fibre-to-the-node
network preferred by the government.
NBN is the government-owned
corporation tasked with the design,
building and operation of a national
broadband network.
James Hutchinson, who covers
technology from Sydney, reported
that NBN currently rents access
to Telstra’s “underground pits and
pipes” but would need access to the
physical copper as part of planned
changes to the rollout. NBN had
argued in favour of rental on grounds
that outright purchase would saddle
it with more than $1 billion in annual
maintenance costs for the network
– and potentially millions more in
technology system upgrades. (“Telcos
Oppose Renting Telstra Copper for
NBN,” (3rd December).
This analysis, prepared by former
NBN executives as part of a brief to
communications minister Malcolm
Turnbull, was presented to the
company’s board following the federal
election in September.
As noted by Mr Hutchinson, the
rental recommendation provoked the
Competitive Carriers’ Coalition – an
industry group made up of Vodafone,
iiNet and other Internet service
providers – to declare it “highly
alarming” that NBN had disregarded
bipartisan political commitment to the
dismantling of Telstra’s monopoly in
the telecommunications market.
Matt Healy, chairman of the coalition,
asserted that NBN has a once-in-
a-generation opportunity to break
with the “structurally uncompetitive
arrangements that have bedevilled”
the Australian communications
industry and consumers for 30
years. Any proposal that NBN buy
“so-called managed services” from
Telstra would, he said, “represent an
abrogation of [NBN’s] responsibilities
to deliver these profound structural
changes.”
In Mr Healy’s view, failure to take
control of the copper itself would in
effect make NBN a reseller of Telstra’s
services, allowing that company
to retain its control position in the
market. The extent of that control and
the cost of Telstra’s copper network
figure prominently in the current
renegotiation of the $11.2 billion
contract between the companies.
Ø As reported in the Australian (13th
December), delays centring on
NBN have forced Mr Turnbull,
the communications minister,
to go back on the government’s
signature campaign promise to
deliver download speeds of at
least 25 megabits per second
for most homes in Australia by
late 2016. About 43 per cent of
premises are now set to enjoy
those speeds. BigStockPhoto.com • Photographer: Krishnacreations