"It's unacceptable that well after the [launch] date these issues haven't been sorted out," Banks added.
Open standards
According to the IIA, by failing to mandate an open standard, the government has left consumers unprotected from increasing upgrade costs.
"Many people will not buy the upgrades and will miss out on the real potential of the technology. Every way you look at the regime you see 'anti-competitive' written all over it," Coroneos said.
However, the government claims to supports open standards but "it would be premature to mandate any particular standard," Senator Alston's spokesperson said.
"What do we do? Preempt the market? Mandate an open standard which will effectively by made redundant?"
Alston's office says it would be premature to make changes. "We're only two weeks into it," the spokesperson said. The first policy review is not scheduled until 2003.
"We would obviously prefer that they review it much sooner," Coroneos said. "Our concern is that each day that goes by the present regime will become more entrenched and all the problems we're pointing to will become harder to fix down the track."
Australian Digital TV - why is it irrelevant?
I want to watch (for example) NBA TV, many many MLB games, Latin-American and European channels (note the "s" meaning many, many channels !!!! - get the message?).
If Digital TV is basically the digitalisation of the same restrictive content that the Australian commercial and Pay TV channels are currently offering, then I am not interested.
This lack of interest extends to me not caring about about all of those fancy HD Tvs in Harvey Norman or Domayne etc - This would be (again) the HD of the same restrictive content that the Australian commercial and Pay TV channels are currently offering, etc.
Because of this irrelevance, I have no interest in Australian TV content, well, except for CNN International news. At least you show that.
Regards