December 2005 Archives

Am considering setting up a linkblog as I find myself stumbling across so much good reading. For now Xooglers gets a special mention. This blog is written by ex-Googlers Ron Garret (an engineer who developed the first version of AdWords), and Doug Edwards (a marketing guy - you can read his fancy title on the blog ;). I've spent the last couple of hours reading and ended up at Ron's summary of Lisp at JPL. Most of it doesn't have much significance to me as a non-Lisper or JPL-er but one comment caught my eye.

The management world has tried to develop software engineering processes that allow people to be plugged into them like interchangeable components.

Its not a practice restricted to software engineering and processes seem to work rather well for companies like McDonalds. However my gut tells me its a bad thing for the individuals involved - it seems dehumanising - and ultimately the organisation but I'm well aware that I haven't yet the experience to properly judge it. So far my experience says that processes provide consistency and aid planning but within the workplace I see people using them as an excuse not to do things (which is not a flaw in the process itself but it is convenient to be able to point to the process because its impersonal and there's ultimately no one to blame). Noting it here for reference so I can have one of those "I can't believe I ever thought that" moments six months from now. :)

Yesterday Telstra launched their now we are talking site. You can read their reasoning at why talk?.

On the whole its a fair site given Telstra's position. One thing that shits me though is the amount of crap flying around about Telstra and regulation, whether its over or under-regulated and what should be done.

In all the debate about whether regulation is good or bad people are taking one of two sides.

1. Telstra is an evil bastard monopoly and we need regulation to stop them steam rolling their competition.
2. Telstra is just trying to generate wealth for their shareholders like any publicly listed company and it is their right to do so without the intervention of regulators.

The amusing thing about both points of view is that many Aussies have a foot in both camps. As a consumer #1 is definitely a problem - without competition prices will remain higher than they need to be and services cost us more. But many of these consumers are also Telstra shareholders who naturally want their shares to go up in value, not down as it has been doing.

The trouble with taking either side is that neither is really the "right" one. On the one hand the fixed-line infrastructure was largely funded by the government and it seems fair that it should be available for use by Telstra and its competitors - that is in the interest of the general public. On the other hand Telstra as a private company has revenues and profits to maintain on behalf of its shareholders. Telstra accuses its competitors of cherry-picking metro vs regional customers and eroding Telstra's profit but again for its competitors that's the "right" thing to do - private companies have one fundamental goal which is to make money.

Whether or not Telstra is lying about their costs (as some do accuse) the basic problem is that Telstra has an internal conflict - the national infrastructure needs to be maintained in the interests of the general public, yet as a private company the directors' mandate is to maximise shareholder value.

Thus IMHO the only clean thing to do is to split up Telstra and move the fixed line portion back under the government. Afterall it is the government's role to look after the public (at least that's how it should be). Regulation to grant competitors access to said infrastructure and/or to fix the price is just a band-aid solution to a problem which is really about fair distribution of costs.

Friday night, Central Station, I'm on the 8.15pm Newcastle express. It leaves on time. We're 50m out from the platform when the train stops.

"Excuse me ladies and gentleman. If there are any train drivers on board could they please make their way to the guard's compartment".

The carriage giggles. The train stutters a little further and stops again.

15 minutes later - "We've fixed the problem and will be on our way shortly".

Train starts moving and stops again after about 5m.

"It appears that we haven't fixed the problem".

Thankfully its Friday night, I've had a couple of beers and have the latest ASL DVD. :)

In their AGM presentation (PDF) iiNet mention that Telstra have raised wholesale rates by 10-20%. On the 1500/256 DSL service which was previously $47 ex GST this equates to roughly $5-10 extra per month. I'd guesstimate this would add roughly $500k/month to their wholesale costs. Understandably iiNet have stated that this would have "significant short term financial impact" and the share price has certainly taken a beating sliding from about $2.60 before the AGM to $1.845 today. Ouch! :)

Primus, in an article in the AFR, indicated that Telstra had raised voice rentals from $24.60 to $28.10 per month.

Meanwhile, Telstra are making noises about building a FTTN (fibre-to-the-node) network which would replace much of the copper that stretches between exchange and the user. The point of this is to obsolete the DSLAMs currently being rolled out by the likes of Optus, iiNet, Primus, Internode and a host of other smaller ISPs. If the FTTN network were to be rolled out these ISPs would need to spread their gear out into each neighbourhood node and arrange backhaul from each node - its basically infeasible for anyone but Telstra. Amusingly enough Telstra is also gunning for assurance that they won't be forced to share their FTTN network, as if anyone could use it!

More details in The Australian - Optus threatens war over Telstra's fibre plans

And a good writeup by ZDNet - Banking on the ACCC