The NBN will deliver more fibre and higher speeds. It could go further.
This is a letter to Comms Day published on 11th February 2025.
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
PNG broadband regulation and market entry
PNG – submission to NICTA May 2022
PNG and the Solomon Islands together with the Australian Government established a submarine cable system (Coral Sea 2). This links Sydney with PNG and the Solomon Islands together with the Australian Government established a submarine cable system (Coral Sea 2). This links Sydney with Port and Moresby and (on a separate spur) Honiara. The expectation was that abundant international capacity would be reflected in lower retail broadband prices. But this did not happen in PNG primarily due to the lack of retail competition.
The PNG telecoms regulator, NICTA, issued a consultation paper on whether it needed to use regulation to force data prices down. But since it issued that paper, Vodafone entered the market with prices suggesting that competition is now present in that market.
This submission to NICTA looks at what the regulator might consider doing given Vodafone’s entry into the market.
Pricing submarine cable for development
This is a talk I gave in Vanuatu and again (with some small changes) to the Submarine Networks World conference in Singapore on 8 September 2022.
It discusses how traffic pricing can increase cable utilisation and contrasts the different experiences of PNG and the Solomon Islands nearly two years after the beginning of service on the Coral Sea Cable in February 2020.
PNG submission to NICTA on pricing
PNG and the Solomon Islands together with the Australian Government established a submarine cable system (Coral Sea 2). This links Sydney with Port Moresby and (on a separate spur) Honiara. The expectation was that abundant international capacity would be reflected in lower retail broadband prices. But this did not happen in PNG primarily due to the lack of retail competition.
The PNG telecoms regulator, NICTA, issued a consultation paper on whether it needed to use regulation to force data prices down. But since it issued that paper, Vodafone entered the market with prices suggesting that competition is now present in that market.
This submission to NICTA looks at what the regulator might consider doing given Vodafone’s entry into the market. PNG – submission to NICTA May 2022