Oh, those competition-crazed aussies

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

Competition-crazy Aussies hain't got no chance (already)

IF THE race has started to develop really fast broadband in the Asia-Pacific area, Australia has already all but lost, a leading telecommunications analyst says.

And if that situation is to change, the Government has to encourage investment in taking optical fibre cables not just to street corner nodes, but all the way to homes, he says. (The Age)

No kidding. Most of us in the technology and media trades have been saying that for .. 5-7 years?
Leith Campbell makes a legitimate point though: "..The political will to invest in broadband isn't there..." Political will? Australia has politicized a fear of the Internet. Internet-phobic as become a syndrome of every election.

Helen Coonan has illustrated repeatedly that she is lost when it comes to understanding the Internet. The numbers seem meaningless to her. Even easy ideas such as the rest of Asia, US and Europe already enjoying broadband speeds of 100 times or more what is available here, seem to just make her eyes glaze.

Telstra has called on the Minister for Communications, Senator Helen Coonan, to cease and desist distributing misleading and incorrect information, and is demanding she put the record straight.

In letters being sent out to 500,000 households throughout the country spruiking the Government's OPEL sweetheart deal, the Minister is incorrectly claiming there is no wireless broadband service in areas where Telstra's Next G™ wireless broadband service is clearly available. (07 Sept)

Telstra went out to the addresses the Minister complains about, and found broadband available. One city she mentioned had been funded for broadband through her own Communications Ministry!

And, the raving debate, - like hyenas to a corpse - rages on: the ACCC has been accused of retarding investment in infrastructure by imposing upon Telstra to share its infrastructure network cheaply.

The ACCC's justification for giving competitors cheap access to Telstra's copper lines was the "stepping stone" theory - allowing new entrants to gain sufficient marketshare to invest in their own infrastructure as they step up the "ladder of investment". That theory has been completely shot down - if the evidence of the low levels of telecommunications investment in the chart below wasn't enough.

The fact that government leadership failed for years to cause the problem doesn't seem to be a popular topic. Or is just that soppy-eyed leadership is taken for granted? Maybe a little more coffee will help...
Sheesh, how am I supposed to make a peddling websites in Australia? Folks gotta be able to see them first. Sphere: Related Content