Between the lines: Let's get smart about our future

A consumer wish for 2001: Government action to promote rapid deployment of fast, low-cost, content-rich, digital services not just via telecommunications and the internet but also via television.

Against the forces for the status quo, it's a vain hope. But the Government needs to realise that this is not an environment in which it can sit back and watch.

With little or no Government regulation, our mythical competitive free market has led to incumbent players adopting a simple strategy - hoard, delay and stifle.

Telecom hoards the phone lines to our homes so no other competitor can use them. It has also put off wholesaling fast internet services on those lines to competitors.

The Government is also happy to let Vodafone and Telecom hoard their mobile phone networks by not allowing competitors to roam in areas where they don't have coverage. Competition stifled again.

Sky hoards access to its TV set-top box so no other competitor can provide digital services via that pathway.

In an ideal digitally converged world, consumers would buy one set-top box, one mobile phone and one land line which could be used with whatever combination of service providers - internet, TV, phone - they chose.

Our valuable radio-frequency airwaves have long been hoarded, too. Telecom has sat for more than 10 years on 2300MHz frequencies that could be used right now for digital TV services.

In the current radio spectrum auction, if it ever ends, expect more of the same. The big players - Telstra, Telecom, Clear and Vodafone - appear to be operating like a cartel in the way they've evenly divided both 2G and 3G spectrum among themselves.

The only small fry competitor left in the bidding is Walker Wireless, which looks destined to be shut out by the big fish - not because they need the frequency, but because they want to thwart a potential competitor.

All of the above is business behaving badly. The winner is not the one that's nimble, efficient and provides better service than its competitor but the one that can kneecap the others with the cruelest precision.

With so much spectrum to auction, has the Government even considered what else it might do? That a use-it-or-lose-it clause could provide incentive to build a 3G network?

Perhaps keeping some spectrum for educational purposes might not be a bad idea. Or using it to provide public digital broadcast services. Or bridging the digital divide.

In the coming world of digital convergence, where the boundaries between telcos, internet providers and broadcasters become increasingly blurred, access to digital infrastructure should become more like a public utility where hoarding is not allowed.