benson--- i agree with your comments,but just to add a...

benson--- i agree with your comments,but just to add a little
telecom/telstra my former employer have over a period of 2 decades been ruled largely by the government they do not have the same freedom as an ordinary company and are bound by regulation a biased requirement to service all of australia which other telco have no responsibility for,i am a customer of sgt or optus and vodaphone largely because of the exceedingly poor customer service that was provided ,however optus only provide service to those areas they can acheive saturation in,telstra are obliged under their charter of operation to provide service to all australians and some of these services can and do cost in excess of $500,000 for a single line for which the consumer pays the same rate as a person in suburban areas,just to repeat you nhave read correctly half a million dollars.

given emerging technology and also the stuff we have not even
heard of yet i would much prefer a charter for all telcos to contribute to advancing the network,telstra to their credit have approached successive governments on this issue with various proposals,however the regulatory environment combined with the political need to be observed as participants in a competitive environment have stymied any attempts made by telstra as it will be perceived as the creation of an even stronger monopoly.

as for the rudd proposal its academic when completion is over a decade away and thats assuming it even gets off the ground,my preference would be for regulatory framework for all telcos and allow free enterprise to do the rest.

i have a reasonable holding in telstra for a little guy and if a change of govt/policy arrives,lets face the fact that rudd is really beginning to look like krudd then telstra
on the back of confidence could soar.

telstra have enormous engineering capability and cash flow i say unleash the beast review legislation