Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 27 August 2008 11:53
IT Industry -
Strategy
Page 1 of 2
The new “Dr Phil Burgess”, aka Group MD of Public Policy and Comms,
David Quilty, has knitted Opposition Spokesman Bruce Billson a lovely
message effectively telling him to get stuffed, and that as far as
Telstra is concerned, structural separation is not an option.
Watch out, Bruce Billson! Telstra’s new “Dr Phil”, aka David Quilty, has some heartfelt advice for you, and it sounds very much like the advice given to Terria Chairman Michael Egan yesterday, which could easily be distilled into two words: get stuffed.
While it’s highly unlikely Billson will be chuffed over such a message, the Neverending Brouhaha Network (NBN) is a political and telecommunications battle of the highest order, with the very survival of Telstra in its current form at stake.
Quilty today “expressed dismay” that Federal Opposition Communications spokesman Bruce Billson had called for the National Broadband Network to be structurally separated, which Telstra says is “a move that would effectively mean breaking up Telstra into unworkable pieces.”
Billson made his call for structural separation “at a forum in Sydney” with Telstra shouting from the rooftops that such separation is little more than a “bureaucratic solution that has failed wherever it has been tried overseas”, although clearly not everyone would agree with Telstra’s view on that issue.
Nevertheless, wanting to make it extremely clear what Telstra thinks of the continued calls for separation, Quilty put out a statement saying that: “Anyone calling for the National Broadband Network to be separated is calling for Telstra to be separated given that the National Broadband Network is essentially a major upgrade to part of Telstra’s existing network.
“Telstra has made it 100 per cent clear that if further separation is required, it will not build the National Broadband Network. Overseas experience has already proven that separation does not work. It increases costs, reduces efficiencies, limits future innovation and, most importantly, kills off investment.”
Quilty’s colourful comments over Telstra’s puzzlement continue on page 2.
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