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Telecommunications Telstra separation anxiety: Tech costs and chaos
Telecommunications Telstra separation anxiety: Tech costs and chaos | Telstra separation anxiety: Tech costs and chaos |
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| by James Riley | |
| Thursday, 15 October 2009 | |
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"Indeed, if Telstra were then to buy from a national broadband network it would require a third set of IT changes," Booth said. "So this multiple migration does significantly add to the risk of customer service and billing programs with millions of customers involved. It really magnifies the potential for some chaos." The result Booth said would put a heavy strain on IT resource and drive significant costs . "If Telstra is required to functionally separate along the lines of British Telecom, for example, its human capital—its people—and its system resources would be fully engaged in a significant IT transformation to enable Telstra retail to buy from Telstra wholesale, and the same resources would not be available simultaneously to develop new systems to access fibre from NBN Co," he said. In its submission to the Senate communications committee, Telstra has put the cost of separating the company at about $1 billion, a large part of which would be in making necessary changes to IT systems. The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy told the committee yesterday it had not done its own analysis of costs – saying the industry was better placed to provide those numbers. However, the department's Networks Policy and Regulation Division, first assistant secretary Pip Spence said based on its study of the BT experience in UK and that of separation in New Zealand that "we have taken that ($1 billion estimate) to be the outer envelope of what the likely costs of functional separation would be." CONTINUED Page 2 |
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