commentary What does Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan have in common with former United States president Ulysses S. Grant?
The pair have both in their time held court to wave upon wave
of lobbyists.
According to popular political legend, Grant coined the term during his tenure as president from 1869 to 1877. Despite being the commander in chief of America's forces, the disapproval of his wife reputedly forced the President to indulge his smoking habit outside the White House.
Thus, Grant often took his pleasure in the nearby Willard Hotel, where those seeking political favours learnt to seek him out in the lobby. The President is said to have referred to these ambitious pests disturbing his free time as "those d*mn lobbyists".
For her own part, Coonan is currently the target of lobbyists representing virtually every significant telco or Internet service provider operating in Australia.
Now Australia's largest telcos have long had dedicated resources to pushing their own view when it comes to regulation of the telecommunications industry. However, the ranks of Canberra's telco lobbyists have recently grown significantly larger due to the entrance of smaller companies to the fray.
First there was the rash of regional, predominately small ISPs who descended on Canberra last month in a drove to plead for leniency as the Broadband Connect government funding they were relying upon suddenly ran out.
This week saw the entrance of a number of additional telcos into the Canberra circuit ... 11 of the nation's tier two players formed a coalition to counter what they see as a campaign of misinformation on the behalf of former monopoly player Telstra.
The group is offering to hold a series of information sessions for legislators to educate them about the true state of Australia's telecommunications market.
The new faces on the block come as the nation's largest telcos themselves have also been stepping up the pressure on Coonan in recent times. Quite aside from the behind the scenes work, both Telstra and Optus have been conspicuous in the last year in getting their executives on the stand publicly to speak about their respective views on telecommunications regulation.
So what does all of this mean to the Australian public? Superficially, these lobbying efforts by telcos can be dismissed as pure and predictable self-interest.
The truth is, there is much more at stake.
As David Kennedy, a research director at analyst firm Ovum pointed out this week, Australia's telecommunications industry is about to see "a major shift in industry structural and regulatory arrangements" as it did upon the opening of competition in 1997.
And Kennedy should know -- back in 1997 he was an adviser to the then Communications Minister Richard Alston.
There are many players gathering around Coonan due to the magnitude of that shift, which is likely to centre on the modification of regulations to facilitate the construction of a nationwide fibre broadband network by either Telstra or a group of its rivals known as the G9.
The construction of such a network would have a dramatic effect upon the industry, which is currently reliant upon Telstra's copper network for its operation.
While the debate over a national fibre network has been raging in its current incarnation since November 2005, the stakes have been raised recently by the Australian Labor Party, which has put the issue on the federal election agenda for the second half of this year.
Until the election is decided and one half of politics has to make good on their promises, the lobbyists are likely to have plenty of work to do.
What do you think of the current wave of broadband lobbying and rhetoric? Just a lot of hot air or worth listening to? Drop me a line directly at renai.lemay@zdnet.com.au or post your comments below this article.
