Fibre and Structural Separation

Industry newsletter Communications Day has published a tongue in cheek list of the Top 15 telco people in 2009.

In listing Paul O'Sullivan from Optus at number 2 he noted;

One observer describes Optus lobbying that led to the NBN and separation reforms as the most perfectly executed campaign he has seen.

Now this is a tongue in cheek item so one can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. But I thought that I should put on the record that the strategy as currently pursued by the ALP was laid out for it by the CCC and AAPT.

AAP joined with the CCC in a seminar in Canberra in 2004 in which we talked about Australia's need for broadband, and that need was fibre. This pre-dates Telstra's FTTN strategy which was, in part, an effort to forestall an all fibre build.

At that seminar we identified that the effective way to introduce structural reform to the industry was through prospective separation at the same time as buildng a new access network. In the audience were Mark Tapley, then in Conroy's office in opposition and now his Chief of Staff, and Richard Windeyer, then in Senator Coonan's office I think but now a FAS at DBCDE.

The policy the ALP adopted in 2007 Telstra thought was support for their NBN plan, but it wasn't - it always included the structural element. The singal biggest error in Telstra was thinkng they could stare down the Government in late 2008 over their demand that sparation be ruled out for Telstra o bid.

All Optus has done is moaned about separation from the sidelines, screwed up the G9/Terria process (e.g. FANOC not being formed by the time the SAU was lodged, nevr actually getting a Terria bid in) and continued to run idiotic statements about the Telstra network as having been funded by taxpayers.

I'm going to submit to the editor my own top X - if it doesn't get a run I'll post it here.