Australia NBN
The NBN legacy – Rising prices and falling global rankings
Remember when the NBN was going to bring Australia a feast of fast and affordable broadband? Then how is it that Australia is 82rd in the world and falling ever further behind? And how is it that broadband bills keep rising in Australia while falling around the world?
Bob James and I have written many times over more than a decade about the failings the structure and level of NBN pricing. The time seemed right to remind people of why we are in the present situation. See The NBN Legacy_Final
Who will blink first on NBN pricing?
The showdown on NBN CVC pricing has been a long time coming. The NBN bestowed an extra 40% of CVC capacity to make lockdown due to COVID-19 more bearable. But it is only temporary. The ending of the 40% uplift inserts a decisive event into what was previously a slow boil. At a time when retail margins are becoming exhausted, something has to give.
Co-authored with Bob James and publishedin Comms Day. read it here Who will blink first on NBN pricing
Pricing in Abundance
There Is not much more that I can say about Australian National Broadband Network (NBN) pricing. But recently I had the good fortune to apply the principles of traffic pricing – which I have been urging for the NBN since 2009 – to the new submarine cable for the Solomon Islands. It provides an example of why pricing for abundance is better than pricing to reflect, or worse, to create scarcity. Economuse 2020-02-12
2019 Review of retail broadband pricing
This is probably the last review using the method developed and used since 2008. More importantly, retail and NBN pricing are pulling in different directions. While I have a lot of issues with CVCs, abolishing them is not the answer.
2018 Review of Retail Broadband Prices
The review of September 2018 prices shows that there has not been much movement on the major issues identified with retail broadband prices:
1. Lack of affordable entry-level prices – this is still an issue despite the new NBN Entry Level Bundle; but too recent to be reflected in the results discussed here.
2. Poor take-up of high speeds – slightly better thanks to new High Capacity Bundles.
3. Increasing pressure on ISP margins due to CVC pricing (leading to under-provisioning) – still true, with full impacts felt when the migration to NBN ends.
4. The growing threat (to the NBN) of increasingly competitive mobile broadband – no change.
More details at Economuse 2018-10-04