Internet Phones

While at the hostel, the dude there was helping me find out information about train ticket prices (as I'm now in an area that my Eurail doesn't work - horrible thing). Anyhow after using a normal phone, he then picked up a phone that was connected into the back of the computer - an internet phone.

I'm sure by now we are aware that with some stuffing around you can make calls over the internet and save a fortune. To date it is still a little cumbersome but this perpherial was like standard issue here, the same as you get a computer with a keyboard and mouse.

Australia has usually been good with take up of technology so I was amazed we haven't caught onto this. As I started to think about it, it didn't surprise me. Unfortunately we have effectively 1 telco in the form of Telstra which the government is still trying to privatise.

If people had internet phones, a significant revenue of Telstra would effectively dry up which isn't conducive to getting a good price when the rest is put on the stock market. This 800 pound gorilla really irrates me. Broadband take up in Australia lagged about 2 years behind other OECD countries cause Telstra was dragging its feet. Why? Cause they made more money if you had dial up.

So sick of this shareholder mentallity - 'We must generate value for our shareholders' at the expense of the much larger stakeholders in the community. Ultimately seems to run against the whole microeconomic reform which is pushing Telstra to the private sector in the first place.

Sorry... rant I know.