MEDIA COMMENT
14th October 2008
Telstra Spits the Dummy
TERRiA Chairman, Michael Egan, said today that Telstra’s threat to pull out of bidding for the right to build the new National Broadband Network will impress no one.
Mr Egan was responding to a statement today by Telstra CFO, John Stanhope, that “Telstra requires the Federal Government to rule out any further separation…we will not bid for the National Broadband Network until we receive clarity from the Federal Government that no further separation is intended.”
Mr Egan said Telstra’s demands once again showed that it was only interested in rolling out the new network for the purpose of re-monopolising fixed line voice and internet services in Australia.
“Time and time again Telstra has made it clear that it is only interested in building the new network if it is allowed to do so completely on its own terms.”
“These include freedom from access obligations, freedom from regulatory supervision of prices, and no requirement for any effective separation of its retail activities from the new network.”
“In other words, Telstra wants to be free of all the conditions that would ensure that the new network was a genuinely open access network.”
Mr Egan said that Telstra was living in fantasy land if it believed the Government would give in to its blackmail.
“The Government has made it perfectly clear that it wants an assured open access network that will be the platform for an innovative and competitive telecommunications industry in Australia.”
“Telstra can’t be serious in expecting the Government to corrupt the competitive process it has set in place for awarding the licence to build the new network.”
“I suspect that Telstra knows its game is up and is simply preparing to spit the dummy sometime soon.”
“Regardless of what Telstra does, TERRiA will be submitting a first-class bid on 26 November,” Mr Egan said.
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About TERRiA
TERRiA is a consortium of eight major infrastructure based telecommunications companies which will bid to provide Australia’s new National Broadband Network (NBN). It includes AAPT, iinet, Internode, Optus, Macquarie Telecom, Primus, SOUL and TransACT. | 
