[LINK] Broadband in Canberra not for apartments

[M. da Cruz]

In my part of Sydney Foxtel kept offering us free installation to the
building ... and best of all after writing to the body corporate with no
joy - wrote to the individual owners suggesting that our body corporate
was depriving us of a fantastic service - it may interest them to know
that the owners and body corporate are one in the same!

I'll be more inclined to sign up when there is an integrated
telephone/broadband service but in the mean time the wireless TV
transmission is good enough for me! ADSL doesn't seem to be available to
me :-(  Maintaining two (telephone + "cable") underground wiring is too
much for my garden! 

By the way when, the local council [in a community consultation exercise
in 1998] asked for input on the underground vs o'head cabling, I wrote
back that I preferred wireless - they replied saying I should be happy
FoxTel had agreed to put the cables underground. I don't think Optus is
coming down our street in Inner Sydney, let alone to our building!

Marghanita

Chirgwin, Richard wrote:
> 
> Tom,
> 
> Not immediately relevant to your case, where the cable's already installed
> ...
> 
> Access to apartment buildings is a bit of a sore point across the
> broadband/pay TV industry. Several issues inhibit broadband delivery to
> apartments - none of them technical.
> 1) I think there's a regulatory loophole - it's possible for a carrier to
> wrap up an exclusive deal with a body corporate that keeps competitors out
> of the deal.
> 2) "Permission of the owner" is painful for the telco - Customer rents
> apartment from family trust which owns the apartment under strata title,
> which means lots of bereaucracy to obtain physical access to premises for
> installation.
> 3) Quite probably, carriers fear that the first installation in an apartment
> may be the last - that the connection will be shared with no further
> subscribers.
> 4) "Easement" - ie right of access to infrastructure - is difficult even
> where supported by legislation. When we're talking about a private company,
> whose have no legislative basis to demand access, but instead have to
> negotiate it, adds an admin overhead to the business of providing
> connections.
> 
> [Digression: most properties have legislatively-granted easements covering
> power, water, sewage and the like. I wonder how many advocates of
> privatisation would feel the same, if the "right of access" to their
> properties ended up in the hands of Rupert Murdoch?]
> 
> Remembering that pay TV is so far a loss-making venture in Australia, trying
> to deal with bodies corporate, absent owners, real estate agents as well as
> the end user probably looks like a good way to ensure that what would
> otherwise lose $20 will now lose $100. So there's no great enthusiasm for
> connecting apartments.
> 
> Unfair? Probably. But bean-counters rule...
> 
> Richard Chirgwin
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Tom Worthington [mailto:tom.worthington@tomw.net.au]
> > Sent: Monday, 11 March 2002 08:02
> > To: link@www.anu.edu.au
> > Subject: [LINK] Broadband in Canberra not for apartments
> > Importance: Low
> >
> >
> > Had a call 8:50am Friday from Transact
> > <http://www.transact.com.au/about_transact/> to say that my broadband
> > connection would be installed in the next 3 to 5 days. Most
> > of the scripted
> > questions I was asked were okay: did I have a network
> > interface card in my
> > computer, which package I had ordered, and such like.
> >
> > But the script assumes the customer is in a detached dwelling
> > with above
> > ground cabling. This is common in Canberra, but as Transact
> > knows I have an
> > apartment with pre-installed underground cabling
> > <http://www.tomw.net.au/2001/sa>. I was asked if there were any trees
> > overhanging the property (no, it is an apartment); was I
> > aware the cabling
> > would be attached to a overhead poles (no the cabling is
> > underground), are
> > the walls double brick (yes, but the cabling is already
> > installed), is
> > there access under-floor (no, but THE CABLING IS INSTALLED),
> > was I aware it
> > may take three hours to install (three hours to plug in a
> > couple of patch
> > cables and a set-top-box?).
> >
> > Last week I suggested to the ACT Filmmakers' Network
> > <http://www.actfilmnet.org.au> that Transact would be a useful way to
> > distribute experimental work and all they needed was a PC or
> > two plugged
> > into the network to be in the broadcasting business. More on
> > this at ABA
> > 2002 <http://www.tomw.net.au/2002/mka.html>.
> >
> >
> >
> > Tom Worthington FACS tom.worthington@tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
> > Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309
> > http://www.tomw.net.au PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617
> > Visiting Fellow, Computer Science, Australian National University
> > Publications Director & Past President, Australian Computer Society
> >

-- 
Marghanita da Cruz 
mailto:marghanita@ramin.com.au
http://www.ramin.com.au - Tel:(+61)0414-869202
Ramin Communications - ABN 27 089 713 084