Posts tagged…Broadband
Senator Conroy finds his internet filter
Tue, Apr 07 2009This is a major move that effectively (re)nationalizes essential infrastructure. Is that good or only inevitable given the history of mistakes in the regulation of private telecom infrastructure?
One immediate concern with this new direction is that history shows companies with a majority government-ownership in Australia and elsewhere become ferocious rent-seekers (think Qantas and the…
Read more…Where’s the evidence?
Mon, Mar 30 2009"[Special Minister of State] John Faulkner promised full disclosure. In fact, disclosure has been pitifully inadequate. Access to the modelling underpinning FuelWatch: refused. Access to the model used to evaluate the ETS: refused. Access to the cost-benefit studies underpinning the NBN: refused. Access to the Building Australia Fund's project appraisals: refused. Access to the Treasury's…
Myopic NBN economics
Thu, Mar 12 2009
Bill Glasson is an opthalmologist from Winton in Western Queeensland who now chairs the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee. His Committee is doling out more than $60m in subsidies for rural satellite phone bills, indigenous phone services and remote broadband. His view on Telstra's proposal to upgrade it's urban cable network?
"Dr Glasson said it was not in the nation's…