The Telstra tracks: agony and irony

Beverley Head
Wednesday, 19 May 2010 16:37

Business IT - Networking

'Going forward' is Telstra CEO David Thodey's pet phrase for the future - it's somewhat ironic as that's the one thing the company can't do while it remains embroiled in negotiations with the Federal Government over the National Broadband Network.

Thodey trotted the phrase out repeatedly during his address to the Trans Tasman Business Circle lunch held in Sydney today, which attracted well over 400 people, all keen to hear about what the future may or may not hold for Telstra. And if there's an irony in 'going forward' there's an agony in the fact that anything Telstra says or does will be viewed through the prism of its continuing NBN negotiations.

Thodey's had plenty of time to get use to both the irony and the agony as today marks his first 12 months as Telstra top dog.

His anniversary speech was billed as 'the mobile internet revolution' and he was careful to preface his comments with a caveat that they weren't intended as any sort of commentary on the NBN broadband plans, but were recognition of galloping market demand for wireless mobile. Telstra's seeing traffic on its mobile network double every nine months he said - but is still finessing its strategies for monetising that surging demand.

Thodey said that there were now 26 million phones in Australia, and 5 billion worldwide- a figure he expected to increase ten-fold in the future. Demand for mobile wireless services would further increase with the uptake of devices such as Apple's iPad.

'What does a company like Telstra do to monetise this?' asked Thodey. The company had already upgraded the network to 42 Mbps and would move to 4G shortly, a move required as high definition video content went to mobile phones.

Even more investment was needed however. 'The thing I want to say is that this requires investment, and a strong nation has strong capital investment actually coming from the private sector and that's what's so important because this stuff's not free.  I hear people saying the internet's free, it's not free ...it requires enormous infrastructure to keep that going.

'We must get the balance right between the commercial reality and meeting the demands of the community and that's what we are working on.'