Opinion: Famous Five

The answer used to be eight but now, apparently, the answer is Telstra.

Whoops. The answer is five if you still think the increasingly toothless Terria has any hope of winning the NBN tender.

It's a worry, that's for sure, when the myth of competition in the telecoms sector gets blown so wide apart you could drive a cable layer through the middle without scraping the sides. You certainly wouldn't scratch the paint work.

Surely in this time of Global Financial Crisis it's time for the government to step in a blow a sizeable chunk of surplus building the NBN all by itself.

It's not like it would be dead money, since Telstra and the other stragglers, will be paying a hefty rental to access the thing.

And it's not like anybody at any telco would lose their jobs (other than a few project managers) if their outfit doesn't win the gig the thing is going to be built by third parties anyway.

No doubt it will be built by the same third party outfits no matter who "wins". So why not save us all the angst and just get the bugger built?

Meanwhile, the only real alternative to burying cables all over the country is to go wireless and one of the pioneers of that market, iBurst, has well burst.

Another wireless provider, BigAir, was supposed to be picking up the pieces and keeping it all going but that's not going to happen now and come December the plug gets pulled, last one out turn off the lights etc.

That Telstra can once again prevail with it's over-priced NextG broadband offering beggars belief, but points to punters not really caring about competition.

They seem to prefer a familiar name over and above a better deal, but car makers have known that for years.

If it was just down to logic we'd all be driving a Kia and swapping it for another one every five years as the warranty expired.

Maybe we could ask Kia to build us a national broadband network. As long as it comes with a five year guarantee.