Speaking at last week's Australian Telecommunications Users Group (ATUG) 2003 Conference, several industry leaders slammed Australia as the "12th man" in broadband stakes. They also branded ADSL as a "fast narrowband" technology incapable of delivering the next generation of broadband services.
The executive director of the International Telecommunications Users Group (INTUG), Ewan Sutherland, savaged Australia's attitude towards broadband and stated in no uncertain terms that the country is falling behind some fairly obscure nations in broadband development.
"You need a fairly good Atlas to find some of the countries that have snuck ahead of Australia," he said.
He pointed out that in Korea the entry level connection speed for broadband is 1Mbps, whereas in Australia the entry level is now 256kbps ADSL.
Sutherland lashed Telstra, saying that they seemed to be "aiming for world-class mediocrity" in the broadband sector.
Industry analyst and consultant Paul Budde blasted Australian political leaders, saying that as recently as November 2001 they thought that broadband was about online gambling and porn.
"It is very sad that they are the people running... the industry... our political leaders don't have vision," he said.
Budde believes that true broadband is the future and Australia isn't ready.
"[Broadband] is a hurricane that will kill a lot of people," he said.
As for Telstra, Budde says that the company's recent dividend payment was proof that they had "no clue" what to do with their money and they lack direction. He also called for increased co-operation between smaller players such as PowerTel and UEComm.
"We need consolidation guys... get together... the common enemy is Telstra," he said.
On 3G and GPRS networks, Budde says telcos should forget about them; the killer mobile app is making and receiving phone calls and SMS messages, and GSM is more than capable of delivering this.
"For too long we've been betting on the wrong horse... forget about GPRS, forget about 3G... it's even stupid to think about it," he said.
He says the whole 3G problem boils down to a market "mismatch" - the people who'll want it, for example teenagers, will be the people who can't afford it. The people with the money will look at it and think it's cool, but will they buy it? "No way!" he said.
Sutherland agrees that 3G could very well go the way of WAP, but said that "all you can eat" unlimited GPRS plans were showing some promise in the US. He said the local approach to the service doesn't make sense.
"You have a flag-fall to connect to a packet network... am I missing something?" he asked jokingly.
Couldn't agree more , we of the lucky country don't feel so lucky these days.