WHEN the Founding Fathers gave the Commonwealth Parliament power to make law with respect to “”postal, telegraphic and other like services”, they recognised, even in the 1890s, the national importance of communications, and that communications was not like other commodities. Since then, successive Federal Parliaments have regulated the provision of communication services, recognising there is a community element to such things as postal and telephone services, especially in a country like Australia where distances as so vast.
The regulation has usually taken the form of cross-subsidies so that people in remote areas do not have to pay the crippling actual cost of the provision of services, but could get them at reasonable costs like their city cousins. Thus, it cost as much to post a letter from Cooma South to Perth as from Cooma South to Cooma North. In telephone services, the cross-subsidy took the form of provide comparatively cheap installation in the bush. And people in their own communities could ring each other for a set fee, irrespective of the time of the call. Long-distance calls, through necessity, remained distance-charged.
The result of over-regulation was the build up of cosy indolent monopolies that only recently have been broken down, the results of which are only now starting to bear fruit. Some of that fruit has yet to ripen and some of it is sour. None the less, competition has had an extraordinary effect on Telecom. Customer satisfaction and efficiency are the order of the day.
However, the communications industry must never be totally surrendered to efficiency and the bottom line. There will always be an element of social service in the provision of post and telephone services, and in the provision of television, radio and other yet-to-be-introduced electronic media. The corporations that sell the services must remain alert to this and if necessary be force by legislation make reasonable provision for socially desirable communication at socially desirable prices: in other words, cross-subsidisation.
The most recent example is timed local calls. On Wednesday both Telecom and Optus suggested that timed local calls for business was an option they would look at. Fair enough; it is a competitive world. If the two corporations can offer businesses mutually advantageous deals that involve charging for local calls on a timed basis, then they should be allowed to get on with it. Businesses know what they are getting in to.
However, timed local calls for private users is another matter. The untimed call has been something of a shibboleth in Australia, and for good reason. Even the economically dry, market-driven Coalition was forced before the last election to back off giving the corporations the option of timed local calls.
There are important considerations of social cohesion when looking at timed local calls. In sprawling cities, faced with growing traffic, more costly public transport and greater distances, people rely more on the phone for social contact. If possible, social contact should not be timed.
And timed local calls might be a false economy for private calls anyway. In the welfare state, the elderly, the infirm and those bringing up children will feel more isolated if they have to worry about time spent on the phone. And they then might be more likely to turn to the state for help. Society has a general interest in social cohesion. To that end timed local calls might be sound for business, but not for families. Competition in the telecommunications industry is to be welcomed, but the competition must be tempered with a social conscience.