Optus wins on TV Now, Telstra to lose on DSL

Twisted Wire looks at the AFL and NRL loss in court over how Optus stores TV content in the cloud. There's also the battle to declare Telstra's wholesale DSL. We know who will lose that one too.

Two important stories are covered in this week's podcast and, as always, we attempt to dig beneath the headline to see what the real impacts will be.

Let's take yesterday's ruling over the Optus TV Now case. The court decided that storing TV content in the cloud is no different to saving it on a hard disk recorder or old-fashioned VCR. There is one difference, of course — you pay Optus for the privilege, and none of that money finds its way back to the content originator. I discuss the repercussions of the decision with industry analyst, Paul Budde.

We also look into whether Telstra's wholesale DSL should become a declared service. That means it would come under the pricing control of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which has earmarked pricing of DSL as one of the stumbling blocks to accepting Telstra's structural separation undertaking. If it is declared, should it apply nationally or should it exclude exchanges where infrastructure competition already exists? As you'll hear in this week's program, Kevin Morgan, industry commentator, and David Forman, executive director of the Competitive Carriers Coalition, have very different views on this.

Add your views on the Twisted Wire feedback line — (02) 9304 5198.

Running time: 30 minutes, 54 seconds

Phil Dobbie was asked to appear on ABC's The Drum on February 2 to further discuss the issue brought up in the podcast. The following video is embedded from The Drum site — the Optus discussion begins at 37:55. -Ed.