[plug] Bloody Telstra

[Kai]

Leon Brooks wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 November 2005 11:46, Kai wrote:
>> surely we have enough expertise on this list and
>> other Australian Telco/ISP lists that if the community really wanted
>> to do something about Telstra's dominance, we could....it'd be a
>> matter of organising it and then making the bloody thing happen
>> rather than just talking and whinging about it.
> 
> For 90% of the population you're covering, there are no real technical 
> issues. What you face is effectively insuperable political and 
> financial issues.
> 
> First you whomp up the million or so dollars needed to start getting 
> registered as a real telco. This is practically all for red tape, mind 
> you. Nothing about equipment or even offices, yet.
> 
> Then you either whomp up millions more to do your lobbying with, or 
> personally visit hundreds of important people with a baseball bat and a 
> short explanation about how much amiss you'd take it if they happened 
> to do anything untoward about interfering with your application. Then 
> you whomp up millions more and be prepared to start battling with 
> everyone from irate residents through obstinate local councils to 
> beauracracy-encumbered state departments for the right to dig up 
> pavements and start laying optical backbone under them. Then you whomp 
> up millions more to fight for whatever licence(s) you need to deliver 
> over "the last mile".
> 
> If you get this far -- several years, much lost hair and many, many 
> millions of dollars later -- you can start thinking about actually 
> finding equipment and such for that magic moment when you actually lift 
> your first paving slab or tilt up your first antenna tower.
> 
> Then some silly bugger will change a key law despite the pithy 
> explanation and brandished sporting goods, and you'll more or less have 
> to start all over again.
> 
> Cheers; Leon

OK, for one person that's an expensive mission....but if all the annoyed 
ISP's and other associated people pooled together as something akin to 
an ISP Union and said we're sick of being anally raped by Telstra and 
told to bring our own lube, so this is what we're gunna do, [insert 
podium speech here],and we'd like to hear from anyone who's genuinely 
interested to get this happening.

The other thought was for an ISP Union to lobby the hell out of the 
ACCC, but then so far as I can see the only thing the ACCC is good for 
is making reports and recommendations which everyone already knew anyway.