Telstra holding back on faster cable Internet?

By Stephen Withers
Thursday, 08 January 2009 10:28

Opinion and Analysis

There's long been a suspicion that Telstra deliberately holds back from delivering newer technology to its customers. Now CEO Sol Trujilo has confirmed it.

Previous examples of Telstra intransigence include artificially limiting the speed of ADSL connections that were on sufficiently short lines to permit higher speeds, and only offering customers the lower-performing ADSL service even though ADSL2+ equipment was installed at the relevant exchanges.

One exception was the remarkably rapid rollout of Telstra's 3G network.

But Trujilo yesterday told the Citigroup EMT conference in Phoenix (USA) that Telstra could roll out DOCSIS 3.0 to provide its BigPond Cable customers with 100 Mbps connectivity, a major step up from the 17 or 30 Mbps currently offered.

But he implied that Telstra won't offer DOCSIS 3.0 unless forced to by a competitor's actions.

Here's the quote from a transcript provided by Telstra itself:

"Well the [DOCSIS 3.0] technology is now real, the technology is being deployed and we have that also as an option if somebody chooses to compete and to compete with us, the only difference is we'll be there a lot quicker a lot faster a lot bigger, a lot more integrated and with more capabilities than anybody else."

That's really great, isn't it? A bit like the old saying about having to wait ages for a bus in a busy city, and then two come along together.

And remember, a similar thing happened with the original HFC network rollout: Telstra and Optus basically cabled the same streets twice - three times if you count the existing copper network. Would Telstra have bothered without the competitive pressure from Optus?