This column first appeared in SmartCompany. Since writing it, I’ve also done an ABC spot on the National Broadband rollout.

The more I research and reflect on the proposal, the more I’m convinced this plan is a winner; assuming it goes ahead.

I’m also more convinced than ever that Telstra is the big winner from the proposal as it relieves them of the Universal Service Obiligation and means they can avoid the massive costs of maintaining and upgrading the copper network. Not to mention the likelihood that the government will end up leasing space on Telstra’s existing fibre network.

Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” coined the phrase BHAG, or Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Few goals are bigger or more audacious than spending $43 billion to run fibre to every house, office, school, farm and factory in Australia.

My first reaction to the national broadband plan was disappointment – on Twitter I commented “there goes the Rudd Government’s final strand of tech credibility.”

Having had time to think about the plan, it’s clear I was wrong. The announcement is a huge change in policy and it will have immense ramifications on how we do business.

Fibre-to-the-premises completes the gaps in our communications systems. When the rollout is complete, we can rely on our internet links and assume our customers and employees have the same dependable connections.

For regional enterprises this is great news, as it will bring the world to the door to some of Australia’s best industries and businesses. It levels the playing field between big and small businesses, regardless of their location.

For Telstra, the result is mixed. While it means more competition in regional areas, it also means it can save billions on upgrading the aging copper network. The criticism of the rollout’s cost ignores the massive replacement cost already required to replace the old phone lines.

While perhaps not good news for management, the proposed break up of Telstra is good for shareholders. Sensis and BigPond, for example, would be worth far more when not shackled to a company fixated on maximising revenue from a ramshackle copper network.

Another great change is in Canberra’s communications policy. Australia has suffered from communications and media being tied together, with the interests of well connected commercial groups being more important than good planning.

The Keating government’s disastrous cable TV rollout was an attempt to provide modern infrastructure while appeasing the dominant media tycoons who saw technology as a threat to their empires.

As a result we got a mess and the cable TV networks, which could have provided this infrastructure 15 years ago became a political and financial quagmire, which delivered little of what was promised.

We shouldn’t understate the social benefits of the plan either. As the recession bites, the need for skilled and unskilled labour to build the rollout will assist in keeping unemployment down.

It’s certainly billions of dollars better spent than propping up shopping centre developers, banks or the manufacturers of cars that no-one wants.

The biggest change though is ideology. Until now, it’s been difficult to imagine a government proposing a massive infrastructure project without the ticket clippers of the merchant banks and other cronies skimming a fat share.

In every respect, this is the best communications plan and one of the most visionary ideas we’ve seen out of Canberra in generations. While it’s going to cost, history will show it’s money well spent.

Whether the broadband rollout becomes reality or not, fast, reliable communications are already a business necessity and will become even more so.

Think about what fast broadband means for your business and plan how you can take advantage of it. Those who don’t grasp the opportunities are going to be left behind.

So have a think about it. You might come up with some BHAGs of your own.

Coupled with the increased downloads we’ll see from the uptake of smart phones, we’re seeing the end of most Australian ISP’s business model of soaking users with excess use fees.

iiNET has done a deal with the ABC that traffic won’t be counted for their customers using the ABC’s service and you’d have to wonder how long it will be until others offer it.

The interesting thing with IP TV in Australia is just how badly the commercial TV stations are falling behind.

A good example is Channel 7 where their tie up with AOL should have made this easy, but they seem to have lost it. The other two networks have nothing.

Under the current pricing structures it’s difficult to see IP TV taking off in Australia, but this will change. The big question is just how visionary Australian Internet providers are and just how the commercial TV stations will deal with the challenge.

Early this year Three Mobile touted their own report which found Australians were reluctant to do surfing the net on their phones due to the risk of copping a monster bill.

Sadly this belief is quite fair when you see some plans charging up to $3,000 a Gb if you go over a 5Mb monthly allowance.

While Optus has sweetened their plans slightly by offering better usage allowances on their iPhone plans, all the providers have done little to improve their mobile phone data offerings.

This stingy attitude to data by the Australian mobile operators is going to continue to cramp the growth in the Australian mobile Internet market.

Until one of the players drops their restrictive plans and outrageous excess use charges Australians will quite rightly shy away from embracing mobile web surfing.

It’s surprising none of the providers haven’t offered these deals sooner given entry level laptops are cheaper than mobile phones and these plans have proved an resounding success in the mobile industry.

As with all these deals, the devil is in the small print. You may be getting a “free” laptop but the cost of the wireless broadband will easily make up for this. The total price of the plan over the 36 month contract is $3,564 which would buy you a lot of laptop.

36 months is a long contract and we can expect to see prices drop and better deals appear as the other companies respond.

Also, a $700 laptop is a pretty basic beast many business users will find doesn’t meet their needs.

Overall, this is an interesting deal that’s going to radically change the business market. However I’d recommend most users sit and wait to see what other deals become available.

The headline is an 84% increase in complaints about ISP behaviour. But this is only part of the story, the details are even more disturbing.

The most notable jump was in complaints about excess data charges. This is only going to get worse as more people start using VoIP and downloading videos. It’s exacerbated by the swing towards ISPs counting uploads and downloads towards their download limits.

One item that jumps out of the report is the confirmation ISPs don’t keep proper records of conversations with customers. While the TIO points at smaller providers our experience is the bigger providers are not better.

The biggest increase was complaints about debt collection procedures where customers have been listed as defaulting on an Internet bill without any notice from the ISP. This probably relates to a couple of sizable and incompetent ISPs going broke late last year.

As we saw with the One.Tel liquidation, the record keeping of these companies is disgraceful and it’s highly unlikely they can prove any debt when challenged. Not that this stops them trying to recover what they claim is owed.

In the category of customer service, ISPs were by far the worst performer. The biggest category of complaint was inadequate or incorrect advice. This is barely surprising

Direct debit problems continue. Part of the problem here is with the banks who consider direct debit requests to be more important than their customers. The TIO points out this a breach of banking code of conduct.

Given ISPs can’t get their billing right and don’t give records it does appear that giving a direct debit authorisation to them is a risky thing to do.

This report is a wake up call to ISP and the entire IT industry. Things have to improve. Some of the areas we need to look at are;

• better training
• improved record keeping
• proper QA and procedures, especially for escalating customer complaints
• clearer and more concise bills

The silly thing is all of these would have positive return for ISPs. By providing better information to customers and staff, they will reduce costs and probably improve sales.

One statistic that leaps out at me is the growth in consumer broadband subscribers of nearly 60%, even if we assume all the 373,000 customers who ditched their dial up plans went over to broadband, that’s still a whopping 35% growth in customers.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the nine month growth in consumer broadband connections from June 2006 to March 2007 (not quite the same period) was 46%.

The decline in dial up connection was 26% over the nine months, as opposed to Telstra’s decline of 36.3% over the twelve months.

Interestingly, Telstra’s dial up decline would have been greater if their systems allow customers to transfer their existing dial up email address to broadband. As it stands, they have to retain their dial up account and we steer customers to Bigpond’s Casual User Plan as a cheap way of doing this.

So Telstra’s performance isn’t out of the line with the industry. What it does show is the massive take up of broadband. It’s also profitable, as Telstra’s report also shows their income has grown by over 66%.

Over the next few weeks I’ll have a look at how other providers are doing. It will be interesting to see how others are performing.

The ongoing spat between Telstra and the Federal government is a symptom of the problems Australians face when going online.

To protect their revenues and investment, Telstra had to slow the adoption of the Internet in Australia. To do this they introduced a unique pricing policy with their broadband Internet packages which still affect us today.

Rationing data through punitative excess use charges meant that customers were exposed to big bills. It also meant smaller ISPs using Telstra’s wholesale Internet plans couldn’t offer unlimited plans like their overseas counterparts. Those excess use fees have proved pretty profitable for Telstra.

A few years back Bigpond CEO Justine Milne said that around half his broadband customers upgrade to more expensive plans. This is barely surprising, as the cheaper plans leave all but the lightest user with a big excess use bill. So it’s important to choose the right plan.

The right plan for you depends upon what you are going to use your broadband connection for. If you have teenage kids, you can expect to have massive music and video downloads, if you have have friends and relatives overseas you might find yourself using Voice over IP. The most important deciding factor is how much data you will send and receive, this determines your plan and it’s cost.

Data Allowances

Every time you go on the net, you transfer data. Every connection, every email and every web page involves data moving between your computer and the net. A light Internet user can expect to use around 400Mb a month, a typical user a Gb per month and a heavy user (those teenage kids again) over 5Gb a month.Most broadband Internet plans include a data allowance. If you go over that allowance you will either be capped, which means your connection is slowed or start paying excess fees. Those fees vary dramatically between 0.5 and 20c per Mb.

The cheapest plans generally offer a 200Mb allowance. The Telstra $29.95 plan charges 15c for each additional Mb. The light 400Mb a month user that does little more than check email and read a few web pages would end up with a monthly bill of around sixty dollars. For sixty dollars a month, you can get a much better plan with Telstra and an even better plan with one of their competitors.

Remember these assumptions are based upon a light user. If you have teenagers, or you like listening or watching streaming media your usage will be much higher. To help you figure out how much data you will use, Telstra have a usage calculator, use this to figure how much data you can expect to use then double the amount to be safe.

Capping

One way to avoid huge bills to choose a plan that caps your usage when you go over the monthly limit. Most broadband providers offer these plans. One thing to watch is the speed when you exceed these plans.

While speed caps protect against massive bills, they are frustrating. It’s best to choose a plan with a generous allowance that means you won’t get frustrated. Remember you will use double what you expect.

Speeds

With broadband plans you can choose what upload and download speeds you want. Naturally the faster you choose, the more you pay.This is another area where the unsuspecting consumer needs to be careful. Many of the cheap plans are the slowest available.

The slowest speed is 256/64, which means the download speed is around six times faster than a dial up modem, while the upload speed is only a little faster.When comparing plans, it’s important to make sure plans are of a similar speed. Faster is definitely better.

Pre Selection and Bundling

A lot of the cheap plans are linked to you agreeing to use that company for telephone calls. While they can be good deals the plans are insanely complex. Customers don’t like them and I agree.

Contract Lengths

Many plans try to lock you into a contract, just like a mobile phone. The longer you committ to, the cheaper the price so many cheaper plans have long contracts. With broadband prices are dropping all the time, getting locked into a two year contract may not be a good deal.

Installation

A number of providers are offering free installation. Read the fine print as this offer may only apply if you sign up to a longer contract or more expensive plan. For the average user, we’d recommend getting the ISP to send a tech out to install it for you, even if you have to pay an extra $200.

Free Months

Some providers are offering a number of ‘free” months. Like the “free” installation offers you’ll pay for these over the extended contract length or won’t get the cheaper or more flexible plans. Read the fine print.

Free equipment

Another “freebie” to get you in. All broadband connections require a special modem. For cable connections this is included as part of your plan. ADSL customers can supply their own modems.

Most ADSL providers will sell you a modem as an extra. While they tend to be more expensive than buying your own, we recommend buying their modem as it becomes more difficult for the ISP to play the traditional blame shifting game if anything goes wrong. This usually adds around $200 to the setup cost.

Like the other “free offers” a free modem may cost you more over the length of the contract. Keep reading that fine print.

Comparing providers

Telstra Bigpond is not the only provider. ADSL is a very competitive market and there are a lot of providers offering good deals. Broadband Choice is the site to visit when you want to find who can offer the best broadband deals.

Broadband is the best way to connect to the Internet but the plans are complex and are often designed to catch the unwary. Make sure you understand what you are getting into before you sign a contract. Shop around to find the best deal for you and remember that if it is too good to be true, it may well be.