[LINK] McCrann calls on Latham to gazump Howard on Telstra

[David Lochrin]

At 11:29 AM 23-02-04 +1100, Frank O'Connor wrote:

>2. Future network carriage standards (and I'm thinking numbers like WiMax - 802.16 and the like - in particular) seem to mean that the 'network' will change somewhat radically over the next few years ... favouring big telcos like BT, AT&T and the like who can pipe bandwidth to Oz over relatively cheap sub-sea fibre and extend their network coverage using 'the airwaves' rather than the optic, co-ax and twisted pair that's already in the ground and served by the expensive exchanges. 

   There's much arm-waving about wireless networks, however setting up a wireless hotspot in a local area (an airport waiting lounge, for example) is a radically different proposition to servicing a whole suburb at reliable ADSL-like data rates.  I don't think that's even on the horizon.

>Exchanges may go 'the way of all things' with IP telephony ... and mega 802.16 router/bridges could provide coverage over extensive areas (30 mile radius or more for each.) In other words ... the initial investment for network providers will drop radically, many more players will enter the market, and a lot of existing network infrastructure will be effectively obsolete and unable to compete.

   Again, setting up a VoIP connection between two 'phones or even within an organisation is quite a different thing to replacing the whole POTS telephone network with VoIP.  Quite apart from issues concerning directories, QoS, standards, and so on, the POTS network is just one user of the existing SDH transmission network and that would have to remain.

>3. Any way you look at it Telstra infrastructure is a tad vulnerable, and I don't know that they yet realise it. Their expensively laid cable network is obsolete, they never made a real go of retail fibre, twisted pair is seeing out its days as an ADSL carrier.

   I certainly agree Telstra don't appear to have been maintaining, let alone servicing, a realistic forward plan.  This is probably one result of privatising the organisation - focus slips from services and engineering to supporting the share price.  It's an almost inevitable result of privatisation.  IMO Telstra shares will almost inevitably prove to be a difficult issue for one side of politics or the other (or the other :­) sooner or later.

ADL

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