Praise all round (almost) for Government's new telecoms strategy

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 07 April 2009 11:03

IT Industry - Strategy

Internode CEO, Simon Hackett, writing on Whirlpool, observed: "Telstra can't complain (though they will!) – because after ignoring the chance to be a nation builder themselves by building an FTTH network themselves (and they're still welcome to do so), and which they could have afforded to do – the government will instead build a new, wholesale only, end to end fibre network that every carrier (including Telstra) has equal access to."

The Competitive Carriers' Coalition was mightily pleased with the outcome, with executive director, David Forman, saying: "We congratulate minister Conroy and the Government on making such as far-sighted decision on industry reform in a way that no Government had previously been willing to do...Australian communications competitors and consumer representatives have called for reforms to create a competitive level playing field for 15 years, and these changes have the potential to do that."

Forman said that "The reforms are long overdue, as evidenced by the internationally high prices and poor services Australians have suffered for more than a decade," but predicted that the mere fact of them being underway would produce results ahead of any formal implementation of new regulations or new networks. "Overseas experience shows that it can be confidently predicted that competitors will respond immediately even if the start date for some aspects of the reform package are ahead of us."

He told iTWire "Telstra is not back in the game...Telstra is in an entirely new world. Telstra won't build this [the FTTP network]. This will be paid for by people who build pipelines and dig big holes an build railroads, not by telcos.

"Telcos will invest their money in retail business and in applications where they should invest their money to enjoy retail rates of returns over a shorter period of time. Super funds will be the ones who will be looking at this."

"Telstra will have to ask itself what sort of business it is going to be. It can't be the owner of this network and a retailer and wholesaler, but it can have a very prosperous future as a retailer and wholesaler [of telecoms services]."

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