Nowwearetalking sinks to new low

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 13 February 2007 17:57

Opinion and Analysis

Telstra's Nowwearetalking web site really is atrocious: full of simplistic arguments and half truths designed to sway the uninformed in Telstra's favour. But its latest tirade has hit an all-time low.

NWAT has hit out at Optus  for submitting a proposal for $200m of Broadband Connect funding  to extend its 3G network from the recently announced coverage  of 96 percent of the population to 98 percent, accusing Optus of "demanding a handout." Actually it could not even get the company's name right labelling it "Singapore Optus" to highlight its foreign ownership.

To see why this is so outrageous. Consider this scenario. A large Australian company, lets call it Telops, puts out a tender worth hundreds of millions of dollars for, lets say, systems integration.

An Australian company, let's call it Dinky Di Data, responds as does a foreign owned company, let's call it Amigosys. Both companies reveal that they are bidding for the contract, but naturally do not make public details of their proposals.

Now imagine that Dinky Di Data starts blasting Telops for even contemplating putting hundreds of millions of dollars in the coffers of Amigosys stressing its foreign ownership and accusing Amigosys of being 'light on detail' about its proposal - even though this is a confidential and commercially sensitive competitive bid. Imagine also that Dinky Di Data predicts that Telops will have no trouble rejecting the Amigosys proposal because it is outrageous and asserts that awarding the contract to Dinky Di Data is a no brainer.

No company in its right mind would do such a thing. Firstly it would be totally unethical and secondly it would hardly increase its chances of winning the business.

But this is not  very different from what Telstra has done. It has submitted a proposal for the whole $600m of Broadband Connect Funding and is competing with the Optus proposal which in part calls for $200m of Broadband Connect funding for a 3G rollout. Both bids should stand as equals and the government should assess these, and all the other bids for Broadband Connect funding on their merits.

Yet Telstra has the arrogance to denigrate its competitor for being foreign-owned,  tell the organisation for whose business both are bidding that its rival's bid is "outrageous" and that "When it comes time for the Government to make a decision, the choice will be simple." (ie give the money to Telstra)

Nowwearetalking should be an embarrassment to any self-respecting corporation and taken off the air or severely reined in. The fact that it  has not been is a real worry.