Under recent threat from the proposal of the Labor party to peer with the private sector, Telstra have again bought their FTTN proposal back to the table for further consideration.
Telstra originally stopped talks around it’s FTTN network after they couldn’t get the ACCC to agree with their impression of adequate ROI (and frankly, I don’t see anyone but shareholders agreeing with Telstra ROI).
I don’t see any problem with anyone making some money. It’s what makes the world turn, however, even I don’t charge through the roof on jobs that I can. Why? Because the better interests are not in stealing peoples money, but rather, helping people succeed.
Now that ‘helping people succeed’ factor seems to be integrated in Labor’s idea, as well as in the G9 idea by allowing competitors access to the network for a minimum fee to fund infrastructure growth, research and development, and obviously a bit on the side (as everyone wants).
Unfortunately, Telstra don’t seem to want to ‘help people succeed’ or ‘make life easier’ for anyone but it’s shareholders. They don’t care for consumers. That’s obvious with their excessive ROI demands, and the long fight against the Australian government, who really, should just ignore it. I for one expect them to. And when they whinge at the next government, I would expect them to ignore that to.
Ignore Telstra. They have nothing worthwhile to say from what I have been reading on their Trash talking “NowWeAreTalking” website.
In fact, they pay out Optus for being foreign owned, yet clearly, the shareholders of Telstra are no more Australian, in comparison to the immigration folk, hitching a free ride to the detention centre.
In related news, Optus has also struck back further at Telstra’s high and rather stupid wholesale prices by increasing them at $2/month for those on 512k plans. Further to this move, Line Rental will start at $55 dollars and include unlimited local calls, however, International and Mobile Rates will differ.
The spark for the move is Telstra Wholesale’s excessive pricing, leaving Low Margin’s available to Optus. Of course, I think there might be more behind the scenes on top of the low margins. Think about this. Telstra have in recent months repeatedly attacked Optus for being Singapore owned, and repeated the boring “Sending your dollars to Singapore” speil (didn’t Telstra have jobs going in India?). As a result of those attacks, Optus is setting a example, and showing Telstra to be blatant liars, by demonstrating that the dollars being made from Telstra services are virtually nothing, and the only real value you have in Telstra Wholesale customers are the actual customer base, and not the revenue they bring, considering it’s nearly all Telstra’s anyway.
So, that’ll set another Telstra lie back to bed, and well, might cause Optus to drop some of its less profitable customer base, but that’s a good thing, because with high profit customers comes high profits, and with high profits comes funds for network expansion, and with network expansion comes growth, and with growth comes a kick in the teeth for Telstra.
Competition, you gotta love it.