[LINK] Estens report posted

[Chirgwin, Richard]

<chuckle> Acessibility applies here to telecomms, not to doc formats!

My first read gives me a couple of impressions:
a) Get ready for the sell-Telstra spin machines to start churning.

b) Some or many of the conclusions are drawn by numbers supplied by Telstra,
because Telstra is the only source of some of the numbers.

c) Some insertions are hard to support from published submissions. From Part
2:
"For example, a frequent criticism of the CSG service standards is that they
prevent service providers offering consumers service choice and price or
quality trade-offs."
[CSG = Customer Service Guarantee]
...The CSG sets minimum standards, and I agree those minimum standards are
inviolable. But preventing service choice? In one direction only. It's like
saying "Food standards prevent us from giving consumers the choice to trade
off price against weevils in the flour!!"

d) The criteria used to define "adequacy" seem pretty woolly. The report
makes it clear what things cannot be taken into account to assess adequacy,
and makes it equally clear that "what's adequate in the bush may not be
adequate in the city" ... but what IS adequacy? Hard to tell ... this gives
rise to a suspicion in my mind that "adequate" is closely correlated to "how
things are now". 

e) Some dischordant notes regarding adequacy: many of the recommendations
would impose reporting conditions on Telstra that don't currently exist.
Question: if Telstra's performance is adequate, and if the USO and CSG are
adequate, then where's the need for Telstra to "report on its performance
in...." ?

f) With all this in mind, though, many of the shortcomings of
telecommunications - well, what shortcomings are actually inadequacies! -
are sheeted home to the government. More funding is called for, new
policies, etc etc. This sounds nice - unless you have my nasty suspicious
mind. If you have my NSM, you think "Ahh. So the government can announce
revisions to its own policies, but since it's not Telstra's fault, it can
sell Telstra!"

Richard Chirgwin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Howard Lowndes [mailto:lannet@lannet.com.au]
> Sent: Friday, 8 November 2002 14:06
> To: Chirgwin, Richard
> Cc: 'link@anu.edu.au'
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Estens report posted
> 
> 
> On Fri, 8 Nov 2002, Chirgwin, Richard wrote:
> 
> > http://www.telinquiry.gov.au/rti-report.html
> 
> ...and to be really annoying:
> 
> "Ms Word Format"
> 
> -- 
> Howard.
> LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people
> Contact detail at http://www.lannetlinux.com
> "Flatter government, not fatter government." - me
>  Get rid of the Australian states.
> ------------------------------------------
> If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
> 
>