Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
As iTWire has pointed out several times, Aird's comments show that the Government's current broadband initiatives make a mockery of promises by Coonan, as set out in the Broadband Blueprint, that broadband policy would be developed in consultation with the states.
Tasmania is one problem for Coonan. Another is the revelation of what Opel in promising its WiMAX network will achieve. Coverage maps for a number of electorates have been circulated to certain parties, and several obtained by iTWire.
They reveal that Optus intends to use its existing GSM base stations for its WiMAX base stations and they show coverage from these as nice neat circles. Trouble is, that is theoretical only and even a modicum of RF coverage planning would have transformed these into irregular polygons reflecting coverage limitations imposed by the terrain.
Industry sources have told iTWire that there has not been sufficient time since the exclusive negotiations with Opel started a few months ago to do detailed RF planning, and that even a minimal level of analysis shows that, using the 5.8MHz spectrum, which is all Opel can confidently access at present, Coverage will be nowhere near as extensive as claimed. And it has been suggested that the Government, not Opel, will have to cough up the extra dollars fore more base stations if that proves to be the case.
One industry insider told iTWire: "We just did a line of site study using the 25 metre height of the GSM towers. We were generous and assumed a five metre height for [the customer's antenna] and the coverage was appalling. There is no way we could see that you would get that 99 percent coverage claimed...And we ignored trees which are a major issue. We question the whole premise of the thing."
As the Opel proposal is for an open access backhaul network the key issues for access seekers are the commercial terms for access and the locations of points of interconnect, none of this has been revealed.
And the promise of a 30 percent reduction in backhaul costs has been dismissed as a joke. iTWire has been told that Telstra currently charge ISPs in Tasmania around $1500 per month per megabit of capacity for backhaul to the mainland, a route over which it has a monopoly. However the appointment by the Tasmania Government of a strategic partner will bring competition to this route and is likely, we have been told, to see prices fall by around 80 percent.
Opel does not yet have a contract, only an 'in principle' agreement with the Government. However the Government will be very keen to lock in a contract before the election. This is not good. People who are in hurry to buy seldom get the best deal.
David Bass
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