49: L.E.O’s Smashing The NBN In 96 Seconds
This 96 second podcast makes you an instant expert on Low Earth Orbit Satellites. Great for dinner party conversations or to impress your boss.
For a detailed examination of LEO's with telecommunications expert Paul Budde, please listen to the preceding podcast, Low Earth Orbit Satellites. Providing services NBN & Telstra promised but never delivered.
LEO’s Smashing The NBN In 96 Seconds
This is a story about the power of competition.
Internet services beamed from low earth orbit satellites, have broken the NBN’s monopoly.
Taxpayers contributed $37bn of NBN’s $57bn cost.
The NBN never delivered the geographic coverage it promised,
It charged exorbitantly for speeds it didn't deliver
and infuriated Australian’s with its terrible customer service.
In other words, it acted like a typical monopoly.
NBN was also immune from Australian monopoly laws which prevent such poor consumer treatment.
Australian broadband subscribers can now switch to services beamed by low earth orbit satellite broadband services. They’ll get the speed they signed up for no matter where they live.
Low earth orbit satellites are cheap. Reusable rockets shoot the $60k to $100k satellites into orbit providing instant internet services
This is unlike NBN’s expensive land based services requiring planning permit applications, land title negotiations, lots of cabling and thousands of people spending thousands of hours building and maintaining the hardware.
Not to mention a captive market, which would be you, being charged high subscription fees to make the business appear profitable.
So, what effect has this new competitor had on NBN?
Australians, fed up with NBN’s monopolistic behaviour, started deserting NBN providers like Telstra & Optus.
The government panicked halving the NBN’s value by writing off $31 bn of the taxpayers $37 bn original investment.
Telstra & Optus suddenly started offering low earth orbit satellite internet services, hoping to stop the exodus of their customers and retain their subscription fees
All it took was the power of competition!
If you’d like to learn all the snakes and ladders involved in low earth orbit satellites competing against the NBN, please listen to telecommunication expert Paul Budde and I on the Burgernomics episode Low Earth Orbit Satellites, providing services NBN and Telstra promised, but never delivered.
And maybe then take a masterclass in how competition works to keep business honest with the original consumer watchdog, Prof Alan Fels an the Burgernomics episode, Misleading and Deceptive Conduct.
Please follow the Burgernomics podcast by subscribing on our home page and following on your favourite podcast channel.
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