Telstra's Orwellian excision of Extel technology

Stuart Corner
Monday, 13 August 2007 09:31

Opinion and Analysis

According to the AFR, "Campbell sought to fit the boosters to hundreds of exchanges but his plan was vetoed by Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo as part of a cost-cutting drive. About 60 boosters have been installed in exchanges but another 200 have been stored in warehouses. Telstra agreed in principle last week to deploy hundreds of the devices rather than the thousands first planned, according to one person familiar with the project. But another said the accord might still be jeopardised because Country Wide must seek approval from Mr Trujillo's inner circle before embarking on new projects...It is also weighing up whether it would be better to promote its planned 3G wireless network in outlying areas."

Well, its one thing to can a technology rollout for sound commercial, regulatory or even technical reasons but when references to the original announcement are removed you have to be suspicious.

According to T4, the carrier group set up to lobby against what it sees as a concerted campaign of misinformation by Telstra, "The problem for Telstra is that Long Line ADSL [Telstra's name for services delivered via the Extel technology] is much cheaper than its Next G network. Telstra can make much more money by convincing customers that Next G is the best option, when in fact it is not.

Telstra has in fact been perpetuating the myth of Next G as a universal broadband service ever since its launch in October 2006. After attending that event - quite innocent of prejudice in this regard, I wrote : "Listening to the presentation and knowing no better you would have thought the service the answer to the prayers of every rural Australian beyond the reach of ADSL, which of course it isn't...Technically, Next G certainly can bring broadband to almost all Australians but economically, no way. Just a small issue of price. But that was not mentioned anywhere in the presentation, and such information was hard to find."

According to T4 this week, "Telstra's Next G network an expensive alternative to fixed broadband service. To use Telstra's Next G network in the same way broadband is commonly used, you would have to be prepared to pay a very hefty premium of $185 per month."

The T4 web site has a whole section devoted to Telstra misinformation and myths about Next G. To those I can add one more. "14.4Mbps network speed to 98.8 percent of the population - world class." This in Telstra's annual results presentation last week.

Well of course, it won't do that. There's an important qualifier which was omitted: "up to". An innocent error or a deliberate omission? I'll leave you to make up your own mind on that one. But after all the disparaging remarks Telstra people have been making about the performance of WiMAX in the wake of Opel winning the Broadband Connect funding, they really should make sure they dot the 'i's and cross the 't's in their own promos.