AE Report on Broadband

Telstra has published a report by Access Economics Impacts of a national high-speed broadband network.

I've made a short comment on the Telstra site, "Would anyone believe me if I said this was an excellent report?"

I was tempted to write a longer comment like;

Would anyone believe me if I said this was an excellent report? Has anyone noted that the cost of a two year delay now ($3.2B over the period 2009-2020) is probaly much the same as the two year delay we've just had?

And that delay was created by ... Telstra! Not the ACCC, not the Government. Telstra decided it would delay the investment. You know what economists call people who can delay an investment without fear of a competitive response - they call them "monopolists". That's a title Telstra tries to deny but demonstrates daily it owns.

The basis for blaming the others was over the notional prices that could be charged - all higher than the current broadbnd prices. But the AE analysis is based, from what I can figure out in the report, as constant prices. Please tell me Dr Warren if I'm wrong.

But at the moment I'm trying to be nice and put my cynicism away and embrace the Telstra "call for peace".