Tuesday 7 April 2009

Who will build and run Kevin's new network?

For starters, we can assume the network will be built with Chinese hardware. There goes any hope of keeping any commercial information that flows across that network secret.

We know Kevin wants to import a few hundred thousand coolies - they will be coming to a street near you before long, armed with picks and shovels and digging up your street to lay a Chinese made fibre. Prepare for your footpath to look like the trench system of a North Korean hillside.

Who is going to design and run the network? I can tell you right now, there is a big shortage of competent network engineers in Australia. All the carriers are suffering from a lack of people with smarts and experience. This new network, which will presumably have the same recruitment, payroll and HR policies of the old Postmaster General's department, will be lucky to pick up the cast offs and dead wood from the existing carriers. This network will be built by the losers, deadbeats, sickie-merchants, pilferers and ex-public sector workshy boneheads that Telstra has spent the last decade getting rid of.

Yes, it will be Telstra Mark II - except it will provide the service levels of Telecom, circa 1974.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was still PMG in 1974!

I think this strategy is a martingale. Having figured that their original FTTN gamble was going to fail, they've figured that the only way out is to raise the stakes: to go to the next level, FTTH, and hope that the marginal gains of N->H are worth the marginal costs.

bingbing said...

Hamsters?

Unknown said...

its like the quote in the movie "the international"

the baddie asks his son what do you do when you find yourself in a situation you can't get out of?

his son answers- "you dig yourself further in"

In that case the result of "further digging in" was a hitman squad of 10 unleashing uzi hell on investigators hot on the bad guys tail

lets hope this is different, but i still expect a blaze of glory

either way here is another issue of accountability and ministerial tenure. conroy will be long gone and in another cushy role, and the govt might even be replaced, the populace will be stuck with the same situation now except rural connectivity is improve. i will be surprised to see fibre within 5 years to be honest. 43 billion dollar announcement of an intention to blow 26 in our taxes- all so conroy could get out of an originally awkward position he put himself in.

find me a company (or investor) that will want to take part ownership in an entity which only has a 49% stake to the govt, is regulated to death, promises poor ROI. to make this attractive to users it needs to be economic. i dont think thats possible within the regulatory intentions flowing at the moment around "what is a nice price for consumers" rather than what is an acceptable price which covers a decent return on capital

this plan stinks

Graeme said...

It could well be Chinese communications company Huawei. They were already linked to Optus during the original tender process.

When the Chinese Propaganda Minister was recently meeting with Rudd, he also met Huawei management (I think in Sydney).

They are accused of having links to the Chinese military and have lost US and Indian contracts due to spying concerns.

If they are going to be involved it appears a pretty poor decision to me. I doubt our "Manchurian Candidate" PM will have the same concerns though!

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,24817246-5014099,00.html

Boy on a bike said...

A Telco installed some Huawei termination equipment for one of my clients last month.

It lasted a day before it was ripped out and replaced with a Cisco equivalent.