As a private corporation, the fact is there is fibre all over the place as of now, just not the last mile.

Telecom, as a private corporation, spent ten years taking out a lot of the fibre that had been put in during the 1980s (specifically, FttC) and replacing it with copper. As I’ve said before, go take a look into Telecoms ICMS database covering those years and you will see that.

very poor record of service and innovation

There was a major technological shift in the 1980s – digital exchanges were put in, cabling went from lead and steel sheathed to plastic and cable jointing went from twisting the wires together to having hand held machines do it. Basically, all the “service” improvements that have happened in Telecom are the result of technological changes that were happening, and were mostly done, by the time of the sale in 1990. Privatisation has done nothing to improve things – if anything, it’s made things worse.

All the innovation was done by companies such as Nokia and Motorola. Telecom just put it in place.

As a private corporation, the fact is there is fibre all over the place as of now, just not the last mile. The competition (in areas where it exists) hasn’t seen fit to roll out FTTH either. We can get up to 40 Mbps where I sit, but it’s still copper cable on HFC, although Telstra will roll out fibre to you if you’re prepared to pay lots of $$$$.

Telecom might just go down that road but then, is it for the good of us or is it for the likelihood of getting a serious cut of that 2 billion?

The way I see it, if Telecom go down that road it’s for the good of Telecom. The good of Telecom doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the $1.5 billion but getting rid of a network that can no longer be milked for the revenue stream as they’ve done for the last 2 decades and now actually requires maintenance and replacement. Getting rid of it would probably be in their favour. I really wouldn’t be surprised to see Telecom structurally separate and then sell the network back to the present government for a few billion $$$.

The heart of it is this: Is Steven Joyce working in the interests of New Zealanders?

From previous blog entries, he doesn’t seem to consider the functional separation of Telecom to be an issue at all. While the separation was put on the table to better serve New Zealanders.

Telecom might just go down that road but then, is it for the good of us or is it for the likelihood of getting a serious cut of that 2 billion? If not Telecom, then who? Are we like the Ministry of Health dealing with MS? Do we not have an alternative?

Add to that the probability that jobs will be shifted off-shore (go India with your bad American accented telephone operators!) if such a separation were to happen and there’s a whole can of worms here.

Remember, Telecom is not our friend. Telecom is friend only to their shareholders. If there’s no profit in it, they won’t do it. Look at the stranglehold they’ve had on high speed Internet. You need to ask yourself, Do we want to be in Telecom’s fist forever?

When are you going to face the basic fact that privatisation of a natural monopoly doesn’t work?