McGauchie’s reply seemed very telling:  “No, not in any foreseeable future at all and in fact you know, it may well be that with this happening, us looking at the future technologies rather than the past technologies is our best opportunity.”

Time now for a little star-gazing and I’d welcome any further stars to gaze at in the comments. 

What will Telstra be doing to slide the silver stake of competition into the heart of the successful NBN tenderer?

I think it’s pretty obvious – they want everyone to go wireless; for a whole bunch of reasons. 

Infrastructure is cheap.  They only need base stations and backhaul wiring (or even microwave dishes).  No more hassles with who owns the copper and they’d no longer care about granting access to telephone exchange facilities for competitors.

The speeds are now acceptable.  I recall hearing a report suggesting that 21Mb/sec is ready now and they can see 100Mb/sec in the near future.

The world has gone portable.  Whether we have an internet-friendly mobile phone or a laptop/netbook device, we all expect to use the device anywhere.  The always-on generation also needs to be always-connected.

It seems to me that Telstra’s half-hearted 13-page submission was simply a kowtow to the Government in order to say “yes, of course we’ll be part of this;” knowing all the time that they didn’t want it and would be kicked out at the first opportunity.

Trujillo is a master of the cut-and-thrust of Big Business politics.  To me, this whole thing reeks of his well-placed hands.

Memo to Optus: Really, I think you DON’T want to win this tender.