Netflix came to Australia and within a few months the entertainment landscape changed. All of the major free-to-air televisions stations now offer movie and program downloads at an exceedingly low monthly rate. Foxtel reduced the prices of some of its packages by 60 per cent. The Internet market per se is about to be hit as well.
MyRepublic is coming to Australia. It has heavily condemned Telstra for its lacklustre provision of broadband Internet via the National Broadband Network (NBN). The Singaporean company will invest in its own network and provide super-fast broadband at prices lower than Telstra. The offer of 100 megabit per second at $80 a month is at the low end of Telstra much slower offer. The copper to homes from the node will hamper Telstra Mr Rodrigues of My Republic says. He says the government has been lying all along about the NBN's ultimate speed.
Just about every Australian believes that the NBN rollout is a mess. It is the target of ongoing jokes with, "Have you go the NBN yet." "No, but the neighbours have it and I should get it in 10 years." Fibre to the home is MyRepublic's business motto that it will never give up. It will offer fibre all the way for free.
The government say the final speed will be 20Mbps. MyRepublic says it will be far less than that. With many ADSL2 customers already getting 25Mbps it is mot really a beneficial investment at all! Australia will be well down the list when the international minimum speed is set at 50Mbps. Disagreeing with Mr Rodriques' claims will not make them go away, particularly if they are the truth.
Telstra says MyRepublic will probably move the nodes closer to homes. The "feet stuck in mud" telecom giant says it will not do this because the government will not give them more money. How often do we see former market leaders end up on the scrap heap of history?
Yeah, saying the goal is the supply of faster Internet to the majority of Australians sounds marvellous, but individual Australians only care about the minimum speed.
◆ Technology by Ty Buchanan ◆
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