Thank you for your letter inviting me to make comment on broadband competition. Before i do so i would like to remind you that in my previous submission i raised the issue of basic access to broadband. Newcastle and its environs still has many areas where subscribers cannot gain access to ADSL services. This is because Telstra had cabled alot of the older Newcastle Suburbs with pair gain, mainly the use of RIM systems - this issue has been raised by Senator Kate Lundy. Telstra to overcome this issue is offering subscribers ISDN as a substitute to overcome this technical problem, however if you compare there current pricing structure it is obvious that ISDN not only offers an inferior product but also the pricing structure is way beyond the means of ordinary Australians.

My concerns with competition to provide subscribers with broadband and here i refer to access that is faster then 128k ISDN, and not the high latency, overpriced Satallite service. Any competitor wishing to enter this market has to go through the Telstra backbone which has been funded by tax payers and telecom users in the past. Telstra is in my view acting in an anti competitive manner by pricing competitors out of the market given the high capital infrastructure needed to setup a broadband service.

A solution would be to allow growth in the wireless network. This would reduce the need for expensive cabling and could provide a cheap alternative - this includes areas like the bush where copper lines are to old to handle ADSL services. However wireless providers still need bandwidth. The main provider of bandwidth in Australia is Telstra, closely followed by Optus or Comindico. Peering arangements which is under investigation by the ACCC ( http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1077 ) - also means smaller ISP's, trying to start up wireless still have to overprice there service to make any money out of it. Small ISP's at the present point in time have to pay the "top 4" four bandwidth they use of them, yet the "top 4" dont have to pay for bandwidth they use of smaller competitors. - This makes wireless providers such as local owned IDL Internet ( www.idl.net.au ) still alittle pricey for ordinary Australians who just want a fast connection, no need for a second phone line and who also cant get ADSL because Telstra has decided to use a NON FUTURE PROOF technology for its network - refering to RIMs / Pair Gain devices.

You probably ask - why doesnt IDL just use another Data Provider ? - that question i cant answer, for all i know they probably are, BUT the question remains - does this "other" data provider still run through Telstra ? in most instances yes it does, infact every Data provider in Australia runs through Telstra at one point or another. In the long run Telstra is always making money. For instance, if they install a RIM system with 480 phone lines that cant get ADSL, they are making money on second phone lines customers need for dialup internet access so there phones are free. They are making money on calls mad on these second phone lines for dialup internet. If these RIM customers are lucky enough to have a local Wireless provider - then Telstra will still make money on the bandwidth that company is using. This is the reason why Telstra couldnt care less about rolling out RIM / Pair Gain to new housing estates and the like.

Back to the point of "Broadband Competition" - i dont think the issue should be discussed so heavily whilst most Australians cant even access broadband ? For those Australians who can get ADSL - im refering to the people who arnt on RIM / Pair Gain - there is a wide variety of plans to choose from, with new National Data providers such as Comindico offering UNLIMITED downloads.

Whirlpool reports on broadband issues, and ISP news in Australia, and Broadband Choice - which is run by Whirlpool lists nerly EVERY Australian ADSL provider and there plans. If users take a good look at this, they will find more then just ONE unlimited plan. If users also read whirlpool, they will also find out that alot of Australians still cant access broadband, and infact some still cant even access 33.6k modem speeds! - which is a disgrace in my opinion. If we are supposed to be a nation which leads in Information Technology, and some house holds cant connect to the internet at 33.6, then we have definatly got to get something fixed, TELSTRA. You could call this whining, but some countries such as Korea, and other Asian countries have fibre internet into more then 50% of house holds. For the people who dont know, fibre can run at 100Mbits - ADSL runs at 1.5Mbits ( and this is around $120 a month for a very SMALL download limit ). You might then say, but Australia has a larger land mass, and a smaller population - we will need huge ammounts of money to fund that type of infrastructure - This is true, but you dont need Fibre everywhere, you can use a mixture of technologies - As i see it at the moment, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane all have BOTH Optus and Telstra Cable internet - these places in the most part also have access to ADSL. Newcastle, where i live has neither of the two Cable's, and we have limited access to ADSL - so whats going on ?! - The fact that Optus and Telstra layed cable in generally the same places, is in my mind just stupid. If they had of layed in totally different places, then there would be twice as much coverage.