The Regional Telecommunications Inquiry report, released today, issued the recommendations after receiving 606 public submissions from individuals and organisations around Australia about the adequacy of telecommunications services in regional, rural and remote areas. The inquiry team, chaired by Moree cotton farmer Dick Estens, found overall, however, that the government had responded "positively and comprehensively" to the recommendations of a previous inquiry into telecommunications service provision and "the arrangements that have been put in place are addressing the community concerns identified in the [previous] report".
The report is expected to prove key to government deliberations over whether it will sell the remaining 50.1 per cent of telecommunications heavyweight, Telstra. In a statement released with the inquiry findings, Federal Information Technology and Communications Minister, Senator Richard Alston, reiterated that "The coalition [government] has made it absolutely clear that it will not proceed with any further sale of Telstra until it is fully satisfied that arrangements are in place to deliver adequate services to all Australians".
The inquiry recommended that a licence condition be placed on Telstra "requiring all Australians be guaranteed dial-up Internet speeds, or equivalent throughput, over the Telstra fixed network of at least 19.2 kbps.
"As part of the licence condition, Telstra should be required to report on its compliance with the requirement and more generally on the data speed performance of its regional network, which should be maintained at least at current levels."
The inquiry also recommended that "Telstra should be required to demonstrate that it has an effective strategy to address any dial-up speed issues arising from poorly performing pair gain systems.
"Telstra should provide a formal undertaking to the government in relation to any actions necessary to implement such a strategy".
In yet another competition trip-wire for the beleaguered telecommunications heavyweight, the inquiry recommended "some Telstra pricing arrangements for ISDN," which "appear to unduly favour Telstra over other providers...be brought to the attention of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission".
The report argued access to higher bandwidth services was "becoming vital for the economic and social development of regional, rural and remote Australia" and recommended a series of measures - including an incentive scheme for the provision of higher bandwidth services to the bush - designed to beef up that capacity.
The report's remarks on pair gain reflect widespread community anger over the issue, which Telstra uses to deliver multiple telephone lines over a single copper connection - a technique serviceable enough for voice traffic, but associated with diminished data speeds in outlying and regional areas. Several customers argue Telstra has failed to tell them about the nature of their connection, compromising their level of service.
The Shadow Minister for Information Technology, Senator Kate Lundy, and ZDNet Australia : have received a raft of complaints from aggrieved customers over pair gain problems, with Lundy claiming to have received 2,000 written comments on the issue.
"The inquiry recommended that a licence condition be placed on Telstra "requiring all Australians be guaranteed dial-up Internet speeds, or equivalent throughput, over the Telstra fixed network of at least 19.2 kbps."
No-one can do that. You would have to re-design the network from ground-up, taking into consideration that EVERYONE may be online at once, and that everyone would require these speeds. This means high cost of rollout, which means costs passed on to consumers, which means people are not going to pay $70 for a dial-up connection.
I agree that something should be done, but surely a bite of a reality sandwich would have helped before spewing this nonsense out.
Just like a road, the more people on there, the heavier the traffic, the slower it will go. And think of all those idiots who will whinge at slow speeds when they are connecting to a popular overseas site. If it's slow, Telstras at fault for not providing the service.