Opinion: Telstra promo sounds a lot like the beginning of the end for net neutrality in Australia

This morning the above “Promoted Tweet” was forcibly shoved down my throat as I was browsing my feed. I almost thumbed past it completely like most of them but the image of a drone caught my eye and I was sucked into watching the video. Bravo marketing team.

What followed was a series of buzz words & phrases from 1998 about the “super highway” – meaning the internet for anyone born in the 90’s – and how Telstra were developing a “world-class solution” to bring faster network access to our emergency services.

In a land prone to bushfire, drought and flooding, our emergency services do a superhuman job. Telstra is developing a world-class solution to give them data priority access on our LTE network. So the people we depend upon have a network they can depend on.

That all sounds pretty tickety-boo (to keep the idiotic vernacular going) until you sit back and think about what this “world-class” tech can actually do.

In developing networks that provide “data priority access” be it via LTE, HFC, fibre or otherwise you’re creating the very basis to end net neutrality.

A topic that in recent times has been of high debate in America-land net neutrality is essentially the creation of a tiered internet. Businesses would effectively need to pay more to have their online presence be available at better speeds effectively removing the even playing field the internet is today.

I have no doubt that Telstra’s promotion was meant as nothing more than a showing of their avid backing towards our emergency services but, but, it could be interpreted very differently indeed.

Am I reading between the lines or borderline wearing a tin-foil hat at this point? Probably the later but frankly I think I look quite stylish wearing one.

Source: Telstra – Thrive on