On 11th October 2011, I spoke at the CommsDay Melbourne Congress event about some of the competition related challenges that exist around the NBN.

These challenges focus in practice on actions that the ACCC should, in my view, be taking in order to safeguard and augment the Long Term Interests of End Users.

The presentation runs for about 21 minutes. (more…)

The National Broadband Network (NBN) is the subject of promises from the government that consumers will pay comparable prices to current day ADSL2+ and phone service bundles in order to access entry level NBN based services, and that NBN based retail pricing will be nationally uniform.

Unfortunately, a number of pressure points in the wholesale pricing model exist which will make these promises (from the government) untenable in practice, unless serious issues with the underlying pricing model are addressed by NBNCo and the ACCC.

This post elaborates on some of the relevant issues that serve to place upward pressure on NBN based retail pricing in general and even more pressure upon retail pricing in regional areas in particular.

(more…)

Recently, federal communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy has again made some incorrect statements about my proposed improvements to the NBNCo wholesale cost access model.

The comments concerned are reported here:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/hackett-s-nbn-rejig-costs-customers-conroy-339312918.htm

Those reported comments (if accurate) contain a variety of statements about my proposals that are misleading in some cases, and entirely wrong in others.

In an effort to correct the record (again), I will take a look at the statements attributed to Senator Conroy and provide correction and comment about each. (more…)