I am baffled by the bulls..t from the management of this company. Building a new fibre optic network around Australia was a good idea in 1997 but to persist with this total nonsense in 2002 is beyond any kind of commercial credibility. I am sure that Wal King was happy to have Leightons being paid to dig the ditch in which the cable is laid but he must have serious doubts about whether it will sign up even one customer. If Macquarie Bank still thinks there is a business case to be extracted from this crazy misinformed technical and commercial misadventure, then maybe they should scoop it up into their new telco infrastructure fund.They could call this one "The Lithium Dependant and Tecno-babbler's Investment Fund" Although I guess that now they have Phil Pryke as CEO, they have someone in charge who is experienced at dealing with failed telecommunications projects,(Lucent's vendor financed OneTel network deal was Phil's). But maybe I'm completely misguided and just have no real appreciation of how "Magic Happens." Can someone please tell me where they think Next Gen is going except to be buried in the transcontinental Australian trench that has been dug to accomodate the fibre optic cable they are laying. $800 mil + of somebodies hard earned money with it.
