sizing up a long trade., page-11

TT:

I don't profess to be an expert on TLS or an expert of any sort of anything as a matter of fact. There are considerably more educated folks out there on what a separation would mean for Telstra, and you might be one of them lol!

Having said that, Telstra's fate depends on a complex hotch-potch of a number of variables:
1. Separation
2. Structure of the NBN and TLS's participation
3. Regulation

Functional separation of TLS into retail and wholesale could impose significant costs for TLS (NZ and BT in UK are good examples of the costs of functional separation). Operational separation might not be too bad.

The Telstra SP is trading at a significant discount now due to this uncertainty and you have valuations ranging from 2.50 right up to $4 depending on who you listen to.

I would suggest reading some of the past posts on TLS. Some good ones below in chronological order:

http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=870722#3928224
http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=871147#3928795
http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=871583#3930959
http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=871848#3932008
http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=873128#3938461
http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=873195#3938917
http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=873445#3940223
http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=874242#3944746
http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=874948#3947458
http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=876833#3958061
http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=876702#3959591
http://www.hotcopper.com.au/post_threadview.asp?fid=1&tid=879307#3970008
The following bit is my personal and impassioned opinion and should not be the basis of any investment decision:

IMO, Telstra is being used as a political football at the moment and it doesn't have many friends on either side of the political divide. T1, T2 and T3 sound like the great Australian ripoffs with Telstra sold off arguably as a lucrative monopoly only to be stabbed in the back once it had been privatised. I say "arguably" because there is an argument that because the government had mentioned downside regulation risks in the prospectus, investors should have anticipated a more hostile regulatory environment ("caveat emptor"). In plain English the government should have more bluntly said that we are planning to introduce regulations which will prevent Telstra from continuing to earn current returns. NBN is now Telstra 2.0 which the government has ambitions of later on spinning off as a viable business concern after it has been built and commercialised no doubt to be later deadlocked into regulation as surely as Telstra has been.

End of personal opinion.