commonwealth excludes telstra from national br, page-24

no they won't that would leave them looking stupid and open to legal action from the valid tenderers

TLS has bluffed and lost

it's great for Australia, not so great for TLS shareholders

maybe we actually have a chance of world class cost effective broadband

well done Mr Rudd

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Telstra's number is up

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John Durie | December 15, 2008
Article from: The Australian

FEDERAL Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has laid the ground for a bitter fight to open Australia's telecommunications network to more competition, by rejecting Telstra's proposal for building the fibre network.
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The rejection exposed Telstra’s hypocrisy in making a quasi proposal and, coming well ahead of final recommendations on the proposals, clearly took the company by surprise.

In an analysts’ call this morning, Telstra boss Sol Trujillo flatly rejected the decision as being a response to his own high stakes, in-your-face attacks on the Government and also promised to fight on every angle.

This included rolling out a competitive broadband network using wireless, which, of course is already open to the company.

Whether he will repeat past efforts and build competing fixed-line fibre networks remains to be seen.

The Government sees this decision as a pivotal event in Australia’s future and, through its statements today and past actions, Telstra is obviously arrogant enough to think it must be part of that on its own terms.

Conroy told them otherwise last night, when rejecting its proposal.

There were four minimum conditions in the proposal - including that it be written in English, used Australian measurements, had an agreement to be a proponent and that a small business plan be part of the document.

Telstra says it has a plan, but didn’t submit it.

Once again, its arrogance - or, perhaps, just plain stupidity - was on display.

The bottom line now is, it runs the real risk of the Government funding an open network, which would directly attack Telstra’s most profitable arm, its monopoly control of the fixed line network.

In today’s briefing, Trujillo continued the myth that he wouldn’t agree to structural separation when no one said he would need to and nothing in the proposal demanded it.

This was a fictitious problem of the company’s own making and now it runs the risk that the Government will effectively enforce that separation by funding a competitor.

For a man who talks so much about upholding shareholder rights, that would indeed take some explaining.

But Trujillo wasn’t backing down either, repeating his mantra that Telstra is the only company with the money, knowledge and power to build the new network.

His talk will now be tested directly, but, clearly, the Government disagrees and will put its money behind an alternative.

Conroy clearly now has to back a competitor right to the finish, because to let Telstra back in the game now without accepting an open network would expose today’s rejection as a sham.

The expert panel looking at the tender applications started interviewing the five participants, but, having taken the view that because Telstra didn’t have a small business plan it didn’t comply, it was legally bound to tell the company.

This was done last night and announced by Telstra today.

Telstra shares were slammed on the news, falling as much as 7 per cent, or $3.84 a share, but the stock was recovering to be down 5.3 per cent.

How does Trujillo explain that reaction?