A recent article in the Cairns Post on Monday had Cairns residents and local MP Jim Turnour fuming over Telstra's decision to halt installation of copper cables into new housing developments. Not to mention the fact that many exchanges in Cairns are at capacity with no upgrades in sight to alleviate congestion or add new broadband ports.
Wally Donaldson, Telstra Countrywide Manager for FNQ claims that because the Government's National Broadband Network (NBN) would soon make copper obsolete, Telstra is refusing to lay any new copper into new housing developments in Cairns or upgrade existing infrastructure. He insists that developers should be working with communications providers to lay fibre optics instead, meaning that Telstra would have a monopoly hold over the communication infrastructure in new housing developments.
With the NBN at least 8 years off being completed and not even officially signed into legislation yet, Telstra is really clutching at straws to not provide services they are legally obligated to do so under the telecommunications USO and Trade Practices rulings.
The move by Telstra is forcing residents to use more expensive mobile NextG wireless services and miss out on a traditional landline telephone service. People with life threatening conditions are being put at real risk not having a landline service to call emergency services if needed.
Mr Donaldson claims that Telstra's NextG offerings are close to current traditional broadband offerings. What a load of rubbish. Average speeds (1.5 to 3 megabits/sec bursting to 21 megabits/sec) on NextG services come nowhere near the constant speeds I receive (currently 8 megabits/sec and up to 24 megabits/sec on ADSL2+) and nowhere near the quota offerings of a landline based service.
NextG services are also far more expensive than a landline service. i.e. NextG Fast 1GB is $59.95 per month. In comparision a 1500K service from Internode with 20GB of data is the same price and Optus's equivalently priced wireless plan offers 6 times the quota.
Jim Turnour has said "Part of the reason we need a national broadband network is because Telstra has failed to deliver the services the community has wanted for many years" and I wholeheartedly agree with him. For too long, regional and rural areas have missed out on the services given to our capital city counterparts.
Premier Anna Bligh said broadband access in Cairns was inadequate and was fully supportive of Mr Turnour’s bid for an early (NBN) roll out.
Telstra you should be ashamed.
