[LINK] Murchoch's NBN (was Re: Turnbull's NBN)

[Craig Sanders]

On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 02:54:04PM +1000, Richard wrote:
> The difference:
> 
> Labor: broadband services move off HFC
> Liberal: broadband servcies remain on HFC
> 
> Both: Pay TV services remain on HFC.
>
> The Sortius article is based on the premise that the HFC ceases to
> exist & this is a threat to Foxtel.

Ceases to be relevant is more like it.  It's barely relevant now.

The threat is that without broadband available on HFC, hardly anyone
will actually want it.

very few want Pay TV now, even less will want it without broadband to
make it a more attractive bundle.  Pay TV is dying, it never really
worked in this country anyway as Free-To-Air TV was mostly good enough,
but it's dying even in America where it was hugely successful - nearly
universal subscription almost on the level of "if you could afford it,
you had it" .

if you're spending $50-$100 per month for NBN (incl. VOIP phone with
free national calls and access to dozens of internet video services),
how keen would you be to pay as much again for access to movies and
TV shows with ads in them - with the shows/channels you do want only
available as an expensive bundle with lots of crap you don't want?

Even ignoring bit torrent, there are already several legal services
offering legit access to the same programs - and there'll be even more
as the distribution model changes to a mix of netflix-like services,
direct subscription to shows, crowdfunding and other IPTV business
models that haven't been thought of yet.

That's the primary threat of the NBN (and the internet in general) to
Murdoch.  Competition over content provision....i.e. a threat to the
near-monopoly gatekeeper/tollkeeper business model.

Net neutrality is also a threat, on HFC, Murdoch can prioritise his own
content, and even charge large competing content providers for transit
(as some in the US are already started to do to Google and Youtube and
Facebook)...double-dip charging, of course - they're already taking
money from their customers for internet access to those services.

Competition for IP provision on the NBN infrastructure is another huge
threat. with broadband on HFC, you've got only telstra/foxtel as an ISP.
on the NBN, you've got the choice of any one of the remaining players -
even with all the consolidation going on in the ISP industry, there's
still 3-5 major ISPs, and maybe half a dozen medium players (depending
on how you count/classify them), and a scattering of small providers


Telstra, even though they dragged their heels terribly, pretty much just
had to accept the impending death of their cash cows, there was little
they could do about it other than delay as much as possible.  Murdoch
and his news/entertainment/propaganda empire don't have to go so quietly
and they've already had decades of experience making and breaking and
corrupting governments all around the world.

Which is why it's no surprise that Abbott's plans for medicare haven't
had *any* attention in mainstream news - not on Murdoch-owned press and
not on Fairfax either (who are equally threatened by Labour's NBN).

Voters are merely worried about the Liberal's NBN plans but they'd be
terrified if they knew Abbott planned to means-test medicare (and likely
scrap the PBS too...although that's just a guess based on his attempts
to gut it in the past).

Means-testing medicare is code for destroying it, of course - universal
health coverage requires universal contribution, and a medicaee tax
revolt will be inevitable if the middle-classes are classified as "too
rich" to benefit from the service their taxes are paying for.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>