The news that Telstra has begun upgrading its ADSL equipment to deliver internet services at speeds up to 16 times faster than are currently available is welcome relief to Australia's millions of internet users. The question remains, however, is what in heavens name is going on in this wonderful first world country that our Government and our largest carrier have allowed our communications services to slip to third world standards.

There is simply no excuse for the fact that what is referred to as a standard "broadband" connection in Australia is a laughable 256Kbps when other first world countries have 10Mbps and in some cases are even moving an order of magnitude higher than that.

Technology analysts throw their hands up in despair and say: "When it comes to broadband, the Government just doesn't get it." Well we have to ask: "What exactly is there to get?"

Without adequate broadband communications, businesses cannot implement productivity improvements, consumers can't get access to new technology and technology companies cannot roll out their latest products.

The frustrating and perhaps most telling part of this situation is that Telstra, the company with by far the most power to make a difference to our disgraceful communications marketplace, is the company most willing to perpetuate the status quo.

Instead of Telstra grabbing the bull by the horns and being the first to roll out a decent ubiquitous broadband service, our wonderful majority Government-owned carrier deliberately forces its long suffering subscribers to accept the very least that it can get away with providing. Thus, it is left to much smaller players with limited resources to come up with any innovative solutions that will deliver real broadband to consumers.

Telstra meanwhile continues with its time honoured strategy of holding back the Australian telecommunications marketplace by meeting the market instead of driving it. We read that a South Australian ISP called Internode has already launched a broadband service that could deliver speeds at five times that of Telstra's service. We read that other ISPs plan to follow suit. What does Telstra do? It announces that it has BEGUN to upgrade its ADSL service to match or better its smaller competitors but it won't say when it will actually deliver the new improved service.

It is to be hoped that when Telstra finally gets fully privatised it starts behaving less like a Government monopoly and more like a company that realises that in the telecommunications space customers are being given an increasing number of choices. We say bring on VoIP, bring on wireless broadband and bring on ADSL2 - the sooner the better. If Telstra shareholders want to see their shares go North instead of South, then they should look to see whether their company is taking a lead in these growth areas rather than being the follower it is at present.