AJ says:

It is not the role of Federal or State Governments to invest in Telecom infrastructure. Their role is to make the regulatory policy that makes commercial investment acceptable and ensure they deliver on their promises. The last time Labour interfered in Telecom regulatory policy, Keating came up with the Cable TV deal that was a fiasco, and they are at it again.

The operators have had to right of billions because of this flawed policy. The big mistake that has been made in Australia with regards these matters is regulatory has never been imposed on the Licenses granted to the operators that they had to supply universal services. They have cherry picked and made huge profits from such business processes and not been made to role out infrastructure and ride on the back of Telstra.

Telstra is a commercial entity. In Asia there are fines for failure to deliver in the Licenses and it is a commercial free for all. There any no fines for failing to provide services. If broadband is worth investing then make it commercial justifiable. No Federal or State money should be invested. The Howard Government is correct, and Labour is morally bankrupt when it comes to fiscal policies.

The Australian public has such short memories of the economic disasters of Federal Labour. Conroy has no idea what the policies are in Asia for such services and he needs to go and do his home work before spouting such rubbish. Hon Kong has no Government investment. Singapore has no Government investment. Malaysia has no Government investment. Thailand has no Government investment. Japan has no Government investment.

Mike Gauba comments:

"An uninhibited access to information is a primary human need to survival like water and power"

I do appreciate AJ's reasons for feeling that strongly about the issue as the past experiences have shown government interventions often increase problems rather than solving them. However, we must appreciate that the need to access information is a primary human need for survival like water and power and also not forget that governments around the world funded the water and power utilities during their infancy.

A very large number of private utilities that we see today were earlier government departments and then became government run corporations before becoming attaining their current status of privately or publicly held corporations.

South Korea that has the highest penetration of broadband stood by Hanaro, a competitive broadband operator to ensure that it survives against a goliath Korea Telecom, which was financially strong to roll out the infrastructure. This ensured a very competitive environment and broadband was available at a very affordable price to every Korean. The result is an Internet savvy generation that fully utilizes its potential to grow through the power of information. Indeed information is power.

The case for government intervention is much stronger in Australia, which is a sparsely populated country with a considerable population living in the bush and supporting primary industries, which are the lifeline of Australia.

There is a very definite need for the government to invest in it, lest a common man should stay deprived of the primary need for years, reducing its chances to effectively compete with the "haves". This move will especially be critical to bridge the digital gap between the "haves" and have nots.

A very large number of governments in their own subtle are helping competitive operators compete against incumbents to build and maintain a competitive balance that encourages rapid adoption of broadband.

Given that the Australian government has decided against breaking Telstra into wholesale and retail companies, it should consider rolling out a broadband infrastructure through a government held corporation that gives smaller and medium sized ISPs an opportunity to service Australiana and in turn help to maintain a competitive environment.

Marketing Guru:Mobile TV is in fact a non starter from the day one. It has been conceived wrong; designed wrong and launched wrong. With all these wrongs, what else would you expect from it. Incidentally, we have published an article titled " Mobile TV - A Fallacy from the Day One " under Some Strategic Thoughts section - which provides a very comprehensive assessment of where it has gone wrong. Also there is another interesting article on the same subject by Monty Silver titled " Mobile TV & the Great Vendor Conspiracy" under Some Other Articles, who has given his view point on its fate. There are some interesting parallels between our view points. Would encourage you to read thse articles to get a fair understanding of all the wrongs

Marketing Guru:This is a typical happening with most mobile operators, worldwide. Broadly speaking, the adoption of technology enabled services follows a pattern with tech savvy adopting first, and then early adopters, followed by a demography of technology conservatives, which is again segmented by less, more and most. Each segment is different from the other and hence requires a very specific adoption strategy that addresses the mindsets of the demography in that specific segment. Thus one cannot apply the same marketing strategy across all the segments.

The operators are going wrong at the following places:

1. Applying mass consumer strategies for every day commodities doctored by Johnson & Johnson and Proctor & Gamble to technology enabled services, which are indeed a different beast.

2. Operators perceive the early growth in adoption as success. This adoption in fact comes from the tech savvy, who are interested in the functionality of the technology and not in the application itself. They normally get bored with it after sometimes and give it up for something else.

3. Most mobile data services are waiting to be adopted by the early majority in a big way. In fact, most operators do not have a clue of the nature of the challenge and those who do have are struggling to address it.

4. Also, most operators treat the mobile data services as VAS to voice. Barring for ring tones and ring back tones, the others are independent services in their own right, which may have a revenue generation potential comparable to mobile voice. We reckon it requires a signifcant change in the mind set.

We would be happy to discuss application specifics on a one to one basis.