Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 02 December 2008 07:43
IT Industry -
Strategy
Page 2 of 3
The full details are over at
the blog, but Bruem questions “The Australian’s” notion of Telstra being a monopoly, says it is a line from “SingTel’s propaganda manual” and then notes that if you “ask anyone in the street if they were aware Telstra had a monopoly in Australia and they'd think you'd just come out of a 20 year coma.”
Bruem then points the cellphone antenna at News Limited and notes that it is ironically “monopolosing an industry in Australia”, while noting that “the only company wanting a monopoly in Australia is SingTel and its quisling cartel mates.”
Indeed, listening to Optus’ Director of Government and Corporate Affairs, Maha Krishnapillai, talking on Sky News Business Channel on the day that it submitted its 1000+ page NBN proposal, I can clearly remember Krishnapillai specifically saying that Optus/Terria indeed wanted a monopoly with the NBN.
I wonder what makes one monopoly better than any other? The ultimate owners of the monopoly? The promises made in return for the granting of that monopoly?
Bruem goes on to claim that: “Telstra wants as much network investment and competition as possible. Sadly, most in the media want to overlook that fact.”
Telstra also takes aim at news organisations (such as Murdoch’s news.com.au) who are “suggesting Telstra was out to play some sort of game”.
Confirming that Telstra thought “the tender process itself was a charade”, Bruem says this is because “nobody other than Telstra has the capacity to build the network.”
He then says that Telsta is “doing its level best to avoid being a player”, insisting Telstra simply “wants to get on with business and avoid further risks that force the company to subsidise competitors.”
Bruem then accuses Optus Terria of being the a “biggest game player” of all, by “first pretending it was a broad coalition of companies actually wanting to build something when it really just a front for SingTel wanting to prevent the NBN happening so it can keep creaming subsidies off Telstra's copper.”
Bruem says Optus Terria “even played silly little side games like flying its mouthpiece to rural NSW and telling country folk that if it won the tender it would want to serve Australia's rural communities first. What a joke. The only reason it would do that would be out of self interest in an attempt to protect its Telstra-subsidised city profits for even longer.”
Bruem then wonders why no-one “in the media [has] taken SingTel to task for its blatant deception?”.
Pointing the cellphone antenna again, Bruem says that “some in the media are still barracking for SingTel to be given $4.7 billion of Australian taxpayer's dollars” which would result “in the dismemberment of Telstra's network and forced handover of assets including the Telstra customer base to the Singapore Government-controlled company”.
Bruem cannot believe “the fact that some Australian journalists believe this should happen and are willing it to happen” and says it “is just staggering.”
Geeks, "Sol$tra" and conspiracies are over on page 3.
Latest Headlines from IT INDUSTRY
