Saturday, September 3, 2022
Australia goes ballistic
From the little broadband backwater Australia has <announced its own plans to go ballistic on broadband. I guess this will make tickets to the FTTH Council in Melbourne in May the hot item of the month.
But its been really hard to work out what's going on. The announcement include a summary from the Expert Panel evaluation which said that no proposals met the criteria but a path forward could be found with a mix and match from various proposals.
The price tag of $43B is just a projection from these elements to deliver Fibre to the Home to 90% of the population at 100Mbps, and 12Mbps to the remainder through satellite and next generation wireless. But outside of Tasmania we have no idea who the providers will be nor how they will be chosen.
Because the Tasmanian fibre is only offering 100Mbps one can safely assume that is GPON. Bad news is that GPON suffers the same "not future proof" characteristics as FttN. It also doesn't really come with an estalished competition model for innovation.
The wireless component is unspecified technology in unspecified spectrum. In Australia right now the only available technology is WiMAX and the only spectrum owners weren't bidders.
As for the satellite component to deliver 12Mbps to the 2-6% of the population that might be serviced that may require one or two more satellites than are currently planned.
Plenty of opportunity. The big loser remains the incumbent telco elstra - especialy as the accompanying regulatory review foreshadows that their second and third strategies after FttN (use their pay TV infrastructure or wireless) may be barred to them through forced divestiture of the Pay TV business and the capping of future spectrum.
As Benoit Felton says;
Overall, both of these announcements, much as they may be frought with risk, are momentous because they dare to break the current paradigm that was inherited from the (largely botched) telco liberalisation back in the 80s-90s. It's hard to anticipate how either will play out simply because for a large part we are now in unknown territory.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Wow what hypocrisy
The SMH on Satuday carried an editorial (second part) titled Conroy tilts at a web windmill. It was better than most because it didn't misrepresent the intended scope of the web page blocking regime.
What it did do was open a new, novel reason for why the internet is different. In responding to Conroy's oft stated question of why Refused Classification content on the internet should be treated differently to other media the author offered;
He asks: what's so special about the internet? The answer is: nothing. But Conroy compares the internet with means of publishing - books, films - and assumes it should be subject to the same classification controls as they are. In fact it should be compared with free means of communication - speech, telephones, newspapers - which it more closely resembles, and in which governments intervene less because intervention is less likely to be effective.
This is either a more nuanced version of "why bother it won't be effective" or is really trying to argue the proposition that content published on a web page is really more like a conversation. Unfortunately, the author fails on the latter by asserting that newspapers are in there with speech and telephones rather than books and films. I have news for them - they would be committing an offence were they to attempt to publish refused classification material (indeed I suspect they would commit an offence were they to publish material that would be classified as R18+ or M18+). The fact is that newspapers, like television, run their own classification exercise rather than submitting it to the censor.
And that ultimately is all that is proposed for the internet. Not all sites will be rated by the "censor", only those referred. Just as the SMH would be referred if it published an instruction on euthanasia in its pages.
So ultimately the editorial rests on the assertion that it will not work. They cleverly then extend this to the "thin end of the wedge" argument that because it hasn't worked there will be pressure to extend it.
But here is another logical slip. The extension they argue will be needed will be to other ways of distributing the content. But the extension they fear will be the extension to more political content. How can it be that we should fear the extension to other content if the justification is that it failed in the first place.
If the SMH wants to join a campaign for free speech let them campaign against any RC list. But save us from this kind of second rate thoughts
What it did do was open a new, novel reason for why the internet is different. In responding to Conroy's oft stated question of why Refused Classification content on the internet should be treated differently to other media the author offered;
He asks: what's so special about the internet? The answer is: nothing. But Conroy compares the internet with means of publishing - books, films - and assumes it should be subject to the same classification controls as they are. In fact it should be compared with free means of communication - speech, telephones, newspapers - which it more closely resembles, and in which governments intervene less because intervention is less likely to be effective.
This is either a more nuanced version of "why bother it won't be effective" or is really trying to argue the proposition that content published on a web page is really more like a conversation. Unfortunately, the author fails on the latter by asserting that newspapers are in there with speech and telephones rather than books and films. I have news for them - they would be committing an offence were they to attempt to publish refused classification material (indeed I suspect they would commit an offence were they to publish material that would be classified as R18+ or M18+). The fact is that newspapers, like television, run their own classification exercise rather than submitting it to the censor.
And that ultimately is all that is proposed for the internet. Not all sites will be rated by the "censor", only those referred. Just as the SMH would be referred if it published an instruction on euthanasia in its pages.
So ultimately the editorial rests on the assertion that it will not work. They cleverly then extend this to the "thin end of the wedge" argument that because it hasn't worked there will be pressure to extend it.
But here is another logical slip. The extension they argue will be needed will be to other ways of distributing the content. But the extension they fear will be the extension to more political content. How can it be that we should fear the extension to other content if the justification is that it failed in the first place.
If the SMH wants to join a campaign for free speech let them campaign against any RC list. But save us from this kind of second rate thoughts
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Pirate Party
Computerworls has published the Pirate Party presentation to Exit International on how to bypass the Government's web-page blocking proposal. It gave us the chance to see that they are peddling the misinformation that equates the existing ACMA blacklisting process to the new one - despite Conroy's consultation on transparency and accountability for the new process.
How useful though is it to lecture these folks on how to bypass rather than doing the hard political yards to get information on how to take your own life taken off the Refused Classification list for all media. Surely that would be more useful to the audience.
Even more useful would be to be more than a single issue party and actually campaign to legalise euthanasia. That's the position the Democrats and its predecessor the Australia Party has had for at least forty years. The Democrats answer on the censorship issue is also saner - an end to Refused Classification in any media.
The Pirate Party - what a joke - just GetUp! in geeks T-shirts.
How useful though is it to lecture these folks on how to bypass rather than doing the hard political yards to get information on how to take your own life taken off the Refused Classification list for all media. Surely that would be more useful to the audience.
Even more useful would be to be more than a single issue party and actually campaign to legalise euthanasia. That's the position the Democrats and its predecessor the Australia Party has had for at least forty years. The Democrats answer on the censorship issue is also saner - an end to Refused Classification in any media.
The Pirate Party - what a joke - just GetUp! in geeks T-shirts.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Openness and Transparency Submissions Released
The quality of the discussion on the Government's policy in relation to controlling content available on the internet became apparent with the release of submissions on the framework for opennness and transparency.
Writing in the Punch Eliza Cussen (who is described as a GetUp campaigner) has identified what she called the top ten internet filter lies. I provided a comment online which is paraphrased here.
I only focus on what was called lie number 5. The point is conceded that the content designated by the policy cannot be lawfully sold or distributed in other forms. A distinction is then drawn between the distribution in those forms and the "filter" impeding "one-to-one" communication.
In reality the policy is not for a filter - it is more technically a policy of "web page blocking". That significantly changes both what it is and how it operates.
As an example the Government has satisfied itself that the high volume sites referred to have their own content management regimes that actually can be relied upon and provide an exemption from the blocking regime. Unfortunately the media beat up over Facebook the other day allowed this to be converted into a Conroy assertion that he would order it to be taken down and it would.
In fact the major high volume sites are promoting a voluntary campaign to achieve the same objectives.
One of the more terrifying submissions to the DBCDE inquiry on transparency was one from an academic who argued that the RC rules were too restrictive because they would block a Japanese cartoon form of child pornography, which is supposedly OK because it is legal in Japan. Thankfully this week's The Economist notes that the Japanese themselves are reviewing their own approach.
Most of the accusations of "lies" rely upon a misrepresentation of the policy.
Writing in the Punch Eliza Cussen (who is described as a GetUp campaigner) has identified what she called the top ten internet filter lies. I provided a comment online which is paraphrased here.
I only focus on what was called lie number 5. The point is conceded that the content designated by the policy cannot be lawfully sold or distributed in other forms. A distinction is then drawn between the distribution in those forms and the "filter" impeding "one-to-one" communication.
In reality the policy is not for a filter - it is more technically a policy of "web page blocking". That significantly changes both what it is and how it operates.
As an example the Government has satisfied itself that the high volume sites referred to have their own content management regimes that actually can be relied upon and provide an exemption from the blocking regime. Unfortunately the media beat up over Facebook the other day allowed this to be converted into a Conroy assertion that he would order it to be taken down and it would.
In fact the major high volume sites are promoting a voluntary campaign to achieve the same objectives.
One of the more terrifying submissions to the DBCDE inquiry on transparency was one from an academic who argued that the RC rules were too restrictive because they would block a Japanese cartoon form of child pornography, which is supposedly OK because it is legal in Japan. Thankfully this week's The Economist notes that the Japanese themselves are reviewing their own approach.
Most of the accusations of "lies" rely upon a misrepresentation of the policy.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The assault on Free to Air television
The Murdoch press has come out with all guns blazing on the issue of licence fee rebates for the FTA networks.
ichael Stutchbury writing in the Oz labels it "corrupt" because it is a supposedly "scret" deal. The sin being that;
Neither the Prime Minister nor Conroy have revealed what the commercial broadcasters agreed to provide in return for paying less to use their publicly owned spectrum.
It really is a piece of nonsense framed like that. The broadcasters clearly made the point that they needed either a reduction in licence fees or a reduction in ocal content quotas. The Government chose the former. The fact there has been no writte commitment about local content related to the rebate could well be due to it being prohibited under the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement (the other FTA).
Meanwhile Terry McCrann has written a diatribe that shows he is more a tool of Murdoch propaganda than serious business journalists. He tries to claim that the only reason Rupert Murdoch doesn't own a Free to Air network is because he wasn't a media mogul whe the licences were handed out in the 1950s.
He forgets to mention that the only asset still held by its original owners is Nine Sydney and Melbourne, both of which were sold then bought back. He doesn't mention that Rupert used to own TV stations but had to dispose of them under the media cross ownership laws when he acquired HWT. He doesn't mention that News and Telstra each bought 15% staks in Seven when it was re-floated after receivership.
That party ended when Seven decided to join Optus and Nine in Pay TV anyway.
And Kerry Stokes is an even more recent media mogul than Rupert. He bought his entire stake in Seven on the open market. CanWest has been a ready seller over at TEN for some time. Rupert can't buy it for a whole host of reasons, but mostly because he doesn't really want to.
Meanwhile at Crikey, Bernard Keane repeats the line that the free to air networks were "given" 7 MHz of spectrum for the purposes of digital conversion. He qualifies this by saying they didn't have to "bid for it". The vast bulk of users of spectrum pay for it by administratively determined licence fees, not by auction.
The FTA networks pay for their spectrum in licence fees that are a progressive scale on revenue up to a rate of 9%. It might have been reasonable to think of the additional channels as additional licences - but they weren't. That actually means the networks pay more because they are paying 9% of the small revenues they get from the multi-channels rather than the lower rate the revenues would qualify for o their own. Issuing an additional licence would have raised less money not more.
The main users who have acquired spectrum through auctions ("bidding for it") are the mobile networks. Not all their spectrum was acquired that way - they pay a flat licence fee for the 900 MHz spectrum originally used for GSM. If you project mobile industry revenues forward at the same growth rate as today a licence fee of less than 3% of revenue would have raised the same amount as the fees raised by auction.
So let's just get the facts straight. The FTAs are paying for their (temporary) digital allocation and they are paying more for it than those people who did buy spectrum at auction.
Meanwhile Telstra and News pay nothing for their use of the airspace through which the Cable TV signal is distributed despite the attempts of some local councils to charge rates for it.
ichael Stutchbury writing in the Oz labels it "corrupt" because it is a supposedly "scret" deal. The sin being that;
Neither the Prime Minister nor Conroy have revealed what the commercial broadcasters agreed to provide in return for paying less to use their publicly owned spectrum.
It really is a piece of nonsense framed like that. The broadcasters clearly made the point that they needed either a reduction in licence fees or a reduction in ocal content quotas. The Government chose the former. The fact there has been no writte commitment about local content related to the rebate could well be due to it being prohibited under the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement (the other FTA).
Meanwhile Terry McCrann has written a diatribe that shows he is more a tool of Murdoch propaganda than serious business journalists. He tries to claim that the only reason Rupert Murdoch doesn't own a Free to Air network is because he wasn't a media mogul whe the licences were handed out in the 1950s.
He forgets to mention that the only asset still held by its original owners is Nine Sydney and Melbourne, both of which were sold then bought back. He doesn't mention that Rupert used to own TV stations but had to dispose of them under the media cross ownership laws when he acquired HWT. He doesn't mention that News and Telstra each bought 15% staks in Seven when it was re-floated after receivership.
That party ended when Seven decided to join Optus and Nine in Pay TV anyway.
And Kerry Stokes is an even more recent media mogul than Rupert. He bought his entire stake in Seven on the open market. CanWest has been a ready seller over at TEN for some time. Rupert can't buy it for a whole host of reasons, but mostly because he doesn't really want to.
Meanwhile at Crikey, Bernard Keane repeats the line that the free to air networks were "given" 7 MHz of spectrum for the purposes of digital conversion. He qualifies this by saying they didn't have to "bid for it". The vast bulk of users of spectrum pay for it by administratively determined licence fees, not by auction.
The FTA networks pay for their spectrum in licence fees that are a progressive scale on revenue up to a rate of 9%. It might have been reasonable to think of the additional channels as additional licences - but they weren't. That actually means the networks pay more because they are paying 9% of the small revenues they get from the multi-channels rather than the lower rate the revenues would qualify for o their own. Issuing an additional licence would have raised less money not more.
The main users who have acquired spectrum through auctions ("bidding for it") are the mobile networks. Not all their spectrum was acquired that way - they pay a flat licence fee for the 900 MHz spectrum originally used for GSM. If you project mobile industry revenues forward at the same growth rate as today a licence fee of less than 3% of revenue would have raised the same amount as the fees raised by auction.
So let's just get the facts straight. The FTAs are paying for their (temporary) digital allocation and they are paying more for it than those people who did buy spectrum at auction.
Meanwhile Telstra and News pay nothing for their use of the airspace through which the Cable TV signal is distributed despite the attempts of some local councils to charge rates for it.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Intelligence Squared
There is a suggestion that Intelligence Squared can't find speakers for the filter for their forthcoming debate on the incorrectly named internet filter. (Actually its against - cause the topic is Governments should not censor the internet.
Maybe they should invite Verity.
Maybe they should invite Verity.
Regulation and the planned economy
A very intemperate post from me on a very stupid article in New Zealand on competition and regulation.
This is a guy whose belief in "freedom" runs to his freedom to be exploited by monopolists.
I wrote in part;
When New Zealand was the global darling of economic turn around it wasn't from abandoning the law or regulation as such, but from introducing competition. New Zealand is allowing itself to "go soft" by listening to the bleating of its large firms.
There is no part of improving one's global competitiveness by reducing competition at home that can ever be justified. New Zealand might just be still getting away with it in dairy.
But riddle me this, if just one or two large firms, or even a cartel of firms provides global competitiveness, then a centrally planned economy is the way to go. With no local market competition you aren't getting the price system to do anything.
Letting domestic firms get fat dumb and happy on monopoly rents is no incentive to go compete.
This is a guy whose belief in "freedom" runs to his freedom to be exploited by monopolists.
I wrote in part;
When New Zealand was the global darling of economic turn around it wasn't from abandoning the law or regulation as such, but from introducing competition. New Zealand is allowing itself to "go soft" by listening to the bleating of its large firms.
There is no part of improving one's global competitiveness by reducing competition at home that can ever be justified. New Zealand might just be still getting away with it in dairy.
But riddle me this, if just one or two large firms, or even a cartel of firms provides global competitiveness, then a centrally planned economy is the way to go. With no local market competition you aren't getting the price system to do anything.
Letting domestic firms get fat dumb and happy on monopoly rents is no incentive to go compete.
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