13Aug 09
Doug Campbell on the task ahead
Posted by Phil Dobbie @ 10:54 1 comments
Play or download the Twisted Wire podcast below:
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The NBN board has been formed, headed by an elusive (at least to the media) Mike Quigley and a more accessible Doug Campbell.
Doug headed Telstra Countrywide and the telco's Networks and Technology division, making him one of two people on the board with technological experience. The other is Quigley himself, whose background includes 30 years with Alcatel and Alcatel-Lucent.
Members of the newly formed NBN board are holding their inaugural meeting this week. This will be the first time all board members will have met each other. Doug Campbell, a member of the NBN board and chairman of the Tasmanian NBN, says that building the team that will deliver the solution will be on most board members' minds.
In this week's Twisted Wire we talk to Campbell about the board and the task in hand. Added to that you'll hear the thoughts of a former colleague of his, Rosemary Howard. Rosemary headed Telstra's wholesale division and today heads executive programs at the Australian Graduate School of Management
As you'll hear, it sounds like the commercial viability of some of the government's estimates are one of Doug Campbell's concerns. He says there's no doubt that for the economy there is a strong business case. So what about plans to privatise it in 13 years? "I think it's a long way off and there will be a lot of water under the bridge before we get there," he says.
In a wide ranging discussion we hear his views on Telstra's involvement in the NBN and the work ahead for NBN Co. For his apple-isle solution Campbell is, of course, working to a tighter time frame than the mainlanders.
Tasmania, he says, is the "location that will determine how this whole network will work, particularly the operations and business support systems". That's an aspect he finds particularly exciting. Perhaps it's because he'll be working from scratch with no legacy systems. For a man who's spent a large part of his working life inside Telstra that must be like a breath of fresh air. And if you want fresh air, Tasmania is certainly the place to go!
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Telstra have hamstrung Australia with its pay for data rort. Other countries allow unlimited (or at least a large amout of data) data to be transferred for free. There is no point having a fibre to the home network if you will be capped to dial up speeds after 5 minutes or less. For example Virgin in the UK will only cap you if you download 6Gb in peak time (between 6 and 9pm) and the you are slowed to 5mb/s for 4 hrs. That is 6gb in an evening, in Australia you get less than that on your average plan for the month. If you look ahead services like streaming tv/movies (legal services - this is where tv is heading), these blatant ripoff practises will continue to make Australia a laughing stock (as will filtering which is no doubt going to be sitting stealthily on top of the NBN). Dont let telstra have anything to do with the NBN (and sack the obviously telstra biased plants in charge)