Sponsor's Message

Clearly Telecom itself is making contingency planning in the recognition that this time the weight of public and industry opinion my force the government's hand.

It's quite amusing to note how Telecom's defensive moves are, to some degree quite counter-productive.

Look at the issue of wireless for example...

Telecom claims that there's no need for the local loop to be unbundled because wireless technologies have now advanced to the point where they can be deployed to provide exactly the same levels of service without the need for copper.

But surely if that was the case, Telecom would have little objection to unbundling -- since it would not give its competitors any more of a commercial advantage than they might have using wireless right?

However, it should be remembered that the government's decision to unbundle the loop isn't a sure thing.

There are some people who allege that Telecom still wields far too much power over government and its MPs for them to cross it in such a crucial matter -- and looking at what they've been allowed to get away with in the past (preferential 0800 pricing for Xtra, the penalty charge for any ISP not using IPNet or a special "internet" dialing prefix that Xtra didn't use, etc) I'm sure these suspicions will not disappear any time soon.

One thing's for sure, the government would have an awfully hard time justifying any decision not to force unbundling -- and today's news shows why.

Based on this story in today's NZ Herald, one can't help but get the feeling that Telecom may have chosen to deliberately degrade its JetStream Starter package in order to force hard-core gamers onto its slightly faster and far more expensive 256Kbps service.

Would this have happened if there were real competition in the marketplace?

I doubt it.

Then there's the issue which I raised yesterday -- and which received a number of insightful comments in the forums. I refer of course to the lousy accuracy of Telecom's IP meter and the way that you have to pay for whatever traffic they allege you've used -- be that figure right or wrong. Surely more players in the market would force everyone to get serious about having an honest metering system?

And what about wireless?

Well I've had a few emails from Woosh users who claim that the service *was* great but recently it's gone to hell in a handbasket -- with actual achievable data rates dropping to little more than dial-up speeds at times.

Maybe some other Woosh users can air their own experiences more publicly in the forums.

One thing's for sure, the decision as to whether or not to unbundle the local loop will either prove or cast doubt on the allegations of an unhealthy relationship existing between Telecom and government.

If any Aardvark readers want to share an opinion on today's column or add something, you're invited to chip in and have your say in The Aardvark Forums or, if you prefer, you can contact me directly.

Contacting Aardvark
I'm always happy to hear from readers, whether they're delivering brickbats, bouquets or news tip-offs. If you'd like to contact me directly, please this form. If you're happy for me to republish your comments then please be sure and select For Publication.

Other media organisations seeking more information or republication rights are also invited to contact me.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!