Telstra`s monopoly days are fast drawing to an end

Excellent article in this Morning's Sydney Morning Herald by Rod Myer and Garry Barker detailing the race against time for Telstra as it fixes its technologies, in the face of declining revenues from its PSTN network.

"...the future will be in internet phone and television, massive levels of data transfer, personalised information services and video on demand, all operating on broadband, cable and wireless networks."

The shift is fundamental, very fast, and will provide a significant challenge to Telstra, especially as the revenues to pay for all this technology will ironically be derived from a declining pool.

But what comes around, goes around.

Telstra has for years denied Australian's access to world-beating technology; our broadband performance is woeful compared to other countries, we are still on a metred system and broadband is still outstandingly expensive for business.

And yet, only a few weeks ago, I passed the Telstra shop at the end of Martin Place where a billboard advertisment was plugging the benefits of ISDN!

ISDN in 2005!

Telstra spending money on its network and services can only be a good thing for the broader industry, though have little sympathy for them as they race to catch up - and keep up.

Rob Wise also comments on the article in his Wonk blog.