What I don't get is how can Southern Phone which was formed and...

What I don't get is how can Southern Phone which was formed and is still owned by 35 local councils in NSW and employs a headcount of 160 profitably serve those 15k broadband customers to be acquired from AYS when the latter failed to do so despite its highly efficient do-it-yourself technology platform? When did government-owned labour-intensive businesses actually become more cost-effective than young innovative disruptors with highly automatized processes hosted in the cloud? Why would anyone pay $3m for AYS' broadband business converting into $200 per customer when that segment has actually been incurring losses, especially for a rather price-sensitive customer base? Why has the segment been sold at all just 18 months after launch and at a time when the political debate over NBN has reignited sparking hopes of lower wholesale tariffs that could completely change the underlying economics?

You would expect some proper explanation to shareholders for what looks somewhat chaotic. I hope this move indeed serves as preparation for the sale of the company as the Australian suggested in August. Perhaps there would have been insurmountable obstacles like change-of-control clauses in the wholesale contracts between AYS and their suppliers that would have impacted the broadband business in case of a takeover by a third party.