Telstra Kicked Out of $15bn Broadband Project

An anonymous reader writes "Australia's largest telco and ISP, Telstra, has been kicked out of the bidding process to build a national broadband network (NBN) estimated to be worth $15 billion. The Aussie government had earlier given assurances that the proposal would be considered, however it now won't even be evaluated by the expert panel, which will make the recommendations to the Senator for Broadband and Communications. The government may now take steps to legislate so that Telstra can't build a network that competes with the NBN — leaving the incumbent to focus on wireless HSPA+ technology instead."

Comments

What about competition?

[MichaelSmith]

I hate Telstra as much as everybody else in this country but it seems to me that eliminating the biggest telecommunications carrier will reduce competition and push up prices.

At the very least it would be difficult for whoever wins the bid to not work with Telstra at some point, because of the amount of infrastructure they control.

Re:What about competition?

[Max Littlemore]

You say eliminating the biggest provider will reduce competition? Eliminating a virtual monopoly is bad for competition? Wow.

I think it's a bit silly not even reviewing their proposal, but that's ridiculous.

Re:What about competition?

[dbIII]

They wanted to prove that they were not bound by the same rules as everyone else by not putting in a bid but expecting to be chosen anyway. If that had happened they would get to dictate their own terms. No government with even half of a clue would let this happen. The previous government dealt with it by pretending that it was not their problem even when they owned all and then most of Telstra. The current government still owns a lot of it (future fund) but their is some weird arrangement where they are not allowed to vote as if they are a shareholder left over from the previous government.

For those outside Australia Telstra can best be summed up as a combination of some of the worst aspects of the government organisation which it was and the worst aspects of a private telecommunications monopoly that it has become. Add to that a fully imported management team of executative with spectacular failures behind them of the sort that think slavery is a good idea and experise in anything is for the peasants. One was infamous for repeatedly refering to the remaining Australian management and the Australian staff as "savages".

If it wasn't close to a monopoly it would have gone the way of Enron long ago due to being run the same way.

Re:What about competition?

[tux0r]

I beg to differ.

Consider that the competitor may (yeah, I know, work with me) be able to provide a tender for a FTTH solution, as opposed to the rather short-sighted FTTN solutions bandied about. (Axia has been talking about FTTH for their bid.)

Suddenly there's no issue with Telstra - the whole legacy copper network is leapfrogged. Competition on pricing and/or quotas rages. Australia is future-proofed and Telstra has to come up with another (distinguishable) technology to stay in the game.

I realise this is not an overnight solution, but we should all be thinking further than ten years into the future. I am very hopeful that FTTH becomes a reality with the new Australian NBN, and now that Telstra is out, it's just that little bit more likely...

Re:What about competition?

[macraig]

At the very least it would be difficult for whoever wins the bid to not work with Telstra at some point, because of the amount of infrastructure they control.

So... how about forcing them to sell it back to the People for whom they built it? It's common shared infrastructure, like roads, after all. It will be ridiculously costly, but leaving it in their control will mean that you'll all pay for it time and time and time again. This is exactly the same advice I had for our own Public Utilities Commission; I hope you don't (continue to) repeat every bloody mistake we've made! We had Bush, you had Mini-Me Bush John Howard....

Re:What about competition?

[Spadgos]

I think the exact opposite! Awarding this massive project to someone OTHER than Telstra who already have a monopoly (with their existing infrastructure), will force both parties to compete for customers. This is a win for the little people! (Unless you're a shareholder, but you'd be used to losing by now, right?)

Re:What about competition?

[whichpaul]

5 - Insightful, what? Try logic-defying.

Firstly, Telstra is a formerly state owned monopoly (or at very least oligopoly) in the Australian telecommunications industry. Introducing another player into the scene will result in competition, NOT the opposite.

Secondly, this has nothing to do with the successful disavowing future interaction with Telstra, rather only placing limits on how Telstra can compete with the successful bidder.

This post really needs to be re-modded as the logic in it's argument is obviously flawed.

Re:What about competition?

[MichaelSmith]

P.S. I am Michael Smith also.

I was once a member of the Michael Smith webring. Years ago when I worked for Vic Roads another Michael Smith was in management in a different department. He kept applying for these management stream courses but because I was first in a list somewhere (and the incompetence of HR) I kept getting the paperwork and turning up. I was a comp. sci. grad at the time so I was totally out of my depth. Eventually they sent both of us along and we got to exchange email addresses.

Re:What about competition?

[Amargosa3000]

They own the infrastructure, so its going to be great fun to see what happens. One bidder, Acacia, freely acknowledges that they will need to compensate Telstra for each copper line they take.

Re:What about competition?

[ChodeMaster]

We actually had Howard for a few years before Bush showed up on the scene. John Howard was Prime Minister from 1996.

Re:What about competition?

[mgblst]

Really? So getting a completely new company to build infrastructure to compete with the existing broadband lines owned by telstra will somehow magically decrease competition? I think you need to go read a dictionary sometime.

This is the best news. The only thing better would be if the government broke up Telstra into its Retail and Infrastructure business, allowing other companies to fairly compete.

Telstra is a joke, run by incompetents who shouldn't be allowed to touch a computer, let alone decide Australias future.

Re:What about competition?

[mgblst]

Their proposal was 12 pages long, compared to serious proposals of hundreds of pages. Telstra were threatening not to bid at all, unless the government gave them some guarantees that no matter who won, they would be involved in the projects.

Telstra were pushing themselves, and the government called their bluff. They have been punished in the markets, dropping 12%, and they should be punished by the government as well.

Re:What about competition?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Telstra wanted to win. They had to put in a bid for sake of appearances, and reports are that what they put in was gratuitously half-arsed. I doubt they plan to play this game by the rules. Perhaps winning would have been quite inconvenient for them.

Recall that a FTN tender was already called, bid, won and accepted, but that Telstra managed to get it canceled, and the process restarted. Maybe they hope to do so again. In truth they haven't been seriously considered, and if they can manage to prevent their own recalcitrance and mistakes being raised in court, which maybe they can if the Law is, as so often is said, an ass, then they will get another bite at the cherry. Third-time could be the charm; the Government might well give up on the idea.

It's not obvious what else they could gain by this, unless it's merely a few more months to a year to exploit their final piece of monopoly infrastructure; the local loop. FTN will shrink that monopoly from copper runs of thousands of meters length to perhaps one-hundred meters. Whatever price they presently justify for the local loop surely will be reduced by a factor of 10 to 50 after FTN is deployed.

I've heard that the local loop represents 60% or more of the total capital value of Telstra, from which I conclude that (an opposition owned) FTN will reduce their value by over 55%.

Note to self: ob Telstra shares: sell! sell! sell!

-- Newall

Re:What about competition?

[gronofer]

You say eliminating the biggest provider will reduce competition? Eliminating a virtual monopoly is bad for competition? Wow.

I think it's a bit silly not even reviewing their proposal, but that's ridiculous.

Apparently it won't be possible to build this new network profitably unless it's given a government granted monopoly. So there is a high-stakes game being played to find out whether there will be a Telstra monopoly or a non-Telstra monopoly. Or alternatively the Labor government could back out of its election promise somehow.

Re:What about competition?

[ivucica]

Hah -- similar thing in Croatia. Sold national telco to Deutsche Telecom (T-Com, y'know). Now (almost) all our telco infrastructure is in foreign hands.

T-Com claims "DTK je u naÅem vlasniÅtvu!" - "Distribution Telecom Channels are our property!" and it's true since the government sold it along with Croatian Telecom, shortsighted and obviously not prepared for the consequences it'll have on free market.

Re:What about competition?

[sortius_nod]

Actually, if you know why they didn't even get to the review process you'd not think it so stupid.

Conroy has stated that Telstra basically wanted top level negotiations to start before the tender was even in place, and to do things the way Telstra wants, not the way the government process is. In essence it was a way for them to bypass the tender process and just get the deal.

I say tough shit Telstra.

Re:What about competition?

[MindKata]

"Their proposal was 12 pages long, compared to serious proposals of hundreds of pages"

I doubt this is only about the proposals. 6 weeks ago, Telstra criticized the government over Internet Filtering. This action to kick Telstra out of the $15bn Broadband Project, is the government's reaction to that criticism.

For example,
"Australia's ISPs Speak Out Against Filtering"
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/01/0248221
"The leaders of three of Australia's largest internet service providers -- Telstra Media's Justin Milne, iiNet's Michael Malone and Internode's Simon Hackett -- have, in video interviews with ZDNet.com.au over the past few months, detailed technical, legal and ethical reasons why ISP-level filtering won't work."

... Like the old say, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you" ... and governments are very good at knowing how to manipulate, exactly like this.

Re:What about competition?

[dbIII]

"Don't bite the hand that feeds you"

Telstra has been playing the game of seeing how many fingers it can get away with for the past few years!

The filtering is an annoying and stupid idea but has nothing to do with this.

Re:What about competition?

[MindKata]

It would definitely have something to do with it. Publicly undermining a government position on anything, is a bad move (politically speaking, as far as that government is concerned. It is however necessary to provide opposition, otherwise you end up with a dictatorship), but any attempt to oppose a government, is something a government will act against, to undermine anyone who opposes them.

Governments even treat their own members the same way, so they have no problem treating complete opponents like this. For example, they use the concept of the politic whips against even their own party members. So they have no trouble using similar tactics against complete opponents.

For example, "Whip is a role in party-based politics whose primary purpose is to ensure control of the formal decision-making process in a parliamentary legislature. Whips are party 'enforcers', who typically offer both inducements and punishments to party members."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whip_(politics)

Re:What about competition?

[witherstaff]

Telstra was simply overdoing it. In the US you can ask for 700 billion with only 3 pages.

Re:What about competition?

[GaryPatterson]

It seems unlikely that the gov't needs to be punishing Telstra on this. The company simply failed to deliver one of five mandatory parts of their bid.

Automatic disqualification.

Telstra seems to have bluffed and been called on it. Sometimes a 900lb gorilla can't sleep anywhere it wants to.

Re:What about competition?

[GaryPatterson]

That was the big failure of telecom privatisation in Australia. The gov't gave away the whole thing, company and network, instead of either keeping the network as a gov't entity or selling it off as a completely seperate company (with controls in place to ensure the two entities couldn't re-merge in future).

The result was a government entity morphing into a public company monopoly, all funded twice by taxpayers - once through their taxes and once through their shares.

Within a few years, Telstra had changed from compliant gov't entity to a company virtually flipping the finger at the gov't, reminding them that they're a company now and don't need to care about unprofitable areas (such as remote customers, farmers, etc). The gov't blustered and publicly attacked the company's direction, but could do absolutely nothing any longer.

Hilarious to watch, in its way, but sad for the nation.

Re:What about competition?

[Techman83]

Exactly, I argued quite strongly at one of Conroy's sessions, explaining exactly why FTTN was not going to be good enough to future proof Australia. He pretty much fed back the Policy that had been conjured word for word. Going by his stance on Internet Filtering, it wouldn't be a far stretch that because he promised FTTN, that's what the public are going to get. Even if FTTH as greater long term benefits!

Re:What about competition?

[Nefarious Wheel]

I was once a member of the Michael Smith webring.

I think I used to work for you during Sol's early tenure. Key=The Russian dev team didn't half suck, did it? The ladies were good looking, but the Russian PM with the bad stammer, who would tell you how to build a clock if you asked him the time ... (shudder).

Re:What about competition?

[MichaelSmith]

I was once a member of the Michael Smith webring.

I think I used to work for you during Sol's early tenure. Key=The Russian dev team didn't half suck, did it? The ladies were good looking, but the Russian PM with the bad stammer, who would tell you how to build a clock if you asked him the time ... (shudder).

Are you talking about Telstra? Fortunately I never worked there. I know some radar engineers who worked for them on JORN though.

Re:What about competition?

[Director of Acronyms]

Or, how about public infrastructure that is publicly owned, there's a genius idea. No monopoly, all carriers can have access to it at standard rates. But then the next Liberal government would just sell it anyway...

Re:What about competition?

[gronofer]

Or, how about public infrastructure that is publicly owned, there's a genius idea. No monopoly, all carriers can have access to it at standard rates. But then the next Liberal government would just sell it anyway...

I suppose when Labor was writing its election promises, that would have been seen as radical socialist thinking. Today, you'd just have to say "why not?", if the government can prop up the entire financial sector and promise billions on spending for other infrastructure, why not provide the full funding for this other natural monopoly?

hey Telstra...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now's Good.

ha.

Senator Conroy's handiwork

[StrahdVZ]

Now I am one of the last people to defend Telstra, but this smacks of Conroy's handiwork.

1) Telstra refuses to participate in "live" trials of Conroy's much-maligned internet filter.
2) Telstra denied chance to bid for national broadband network based on a technicality.

Coincidence? I hardly think so.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm. A
No. Telstra trying to hold us all to ransom is the problem. For some reason they seem to think they should be given special treatment.

I don't care if it causes me a little pain. I don't give in to bullies.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of other ISP's have refused to participate. ISP's who have like iiNet have publically bagged the entire process.

I think you are really reaching if you think the two are related.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Chuck Chunder]

I think a causal link there is probably a bit of a stretch.

That said it's a convenient distraction from the backlash Conroy has been facing and it must be hard for a lot of Australian internet users to decide who they dislike more, Conroy or Telstra.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[mcon147]

Coincidence? .. hell yes. Conroy didn't need Telstra in the trials. He just needed a single isp, there's more than one in Australia. Rudd does need Telstra to build the network, Telstra knows the other carriers cant get credit to actually build the damn thing without the government backing it. Telstra knows the other carriers are there so it looks like there was a fair try, at not giving all the business to the dominant player. This isn't Conroy being stupid or evil, this is Telstra toying with him (You could argue he deserves it though).

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[dbIII]

No. Sol has been playing politics on this broadband plan from the start. The trick to win the bid without putting in a proper bid would let him set his own terms.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[tux0r]

...Telstra knows the other carriers cant get credit to actually build the damn thing without the government backing it.

I have a suggestion: how about we get the government to undertake a RFP process, so that the successful tenderer could take advantage of $4.7bn of government backing.

Oh, right...

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[mister_tim]

Or rather:

3) Telstra submitted a non-conforming tender and the Government had no choice but to reject it.

Being a Government employee myself, when it comes to tendering you have to apply the same rules to everyone. If the Government had accepted Telstra's tender, even though it did not comply with the requirements in the RFT (and this was well publicised, they would have left themselves open for all sorts of problems, e.g. being sued by other applicants.

Optus was right to say that Telstra's submission was a joke: a 12 page letter to the Minister in lieu of a serious tender for a $4.7bn project is brinkmanship of the worst sort and the Government was right to call their bluff.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[mcon147]

The network wont be fully funded by the government. Hence the carriers are taking on some risk aswell.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Nefarious Wheel]

... Sol has been playing politics on this broadband plan from the start. The trick to win the bid without putting in a proper bid would let him set his own terms.

Aye.

Sol, we've given you every break. We've bent over backwards to give you a chance. What we don't want to do at this point is grab our ankles.

The esteemed Mr. Trujillo is of the "everything's negotiable when you're this big" school. I think, personally, that he has mis-read the Australian psyche.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Ralish]

I loathe Conroy, and everything national internet filtering involves, but in this case, it's more than just a technicality.

Whereas all the other major contenders submitted official proposals in the tender process, Telstra instead submitted an "informal" proposal that lacked significant details that the other official proposals had, not to mention vague estimations on things as minor as "network coverage". Further, many of these estimations fell far short of the government requirements in the first place. Add in the fact that Telstra wanted their flawed and half-baked proposal to be considered with the same standing as the detailed official tenders their rivals had submitted, and you being to realise that Telstra is just a joke.

Today it emerged that they didn't submit details on how they intended to liase with and include small business in the construction and development process; which is oh-so-fitting keeping in mind this is a giant telecom monopoly.

These articles better explain how absurd Telstra's position and conduct regarding the tender process has been to date. I challenge you to read them and not agree that they should have been kicked out of the evaluation process. Frankly, I'd have kicked them out some time ago.

Telstra bends the rules on internet bid

Telstra excluded from broadband network tender

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[TapeCutter]

"Senator Conroy's handiwork?" - I wish politics was that simple...

1) Conroy rarely comments on the filter because he does not support it. The only reason a filter is being "trialed" is to placate senator Fielding from the "Family First" party who under certain circumstances can hold the balance of power in the senate. (ie: the govt of the day is buying his vote by spending ~$100K on his pet project). It's political theater that most people expect to see die in the senate (including Telstra, who called it a 'pipedream'). One of the IPS's who is taking part in the trial is iiNet who's CEO wanted to take part in order to "prove it was unworkable".

2) The NBN has been in the works longer than Conroy has been in his position. When Telstra leaned it was not going to be handed the contract on a silver platter they very publicly refused to play by the rules of the tender. Personally I applaud both our current and previous governments for refusing to bend over for a large corporation.

How does a religious nutter like fielding get elected in the first place? - Culled from wikipedia: "In Victoria, Family First, the Christian Democrats and the DLP allocated their senate preferences to Labor, in order to help ensure the re-election of the number three Labor Senate candidate, Jacinta Collins, a Catholic who has conservative views on some social issues such as abortion. In exchange, Labor gave its Senate preferences in Victoria to Family First ahead of the Greens, expecting Family First to be eliminated before these preferences were distributed. In the event, however, Labor and Democrat preferences helped Family First's Steve Fielding beat the Green's David Risstrom to win the last Victorian Senate seat and become Family First's first Federal parliamentarian."

In otherwords Fielding was a pawn that nobody expected to win, let alone hold the balance of power! Now that he does, both sides of the house come knocking on his door in an attempt to sway his vote.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Anonymous Coward]

And what happened to iinet?

Oh, that's right...

There's a very common theme when it comes to those openly criticising Conroy. Also evident here

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Anonymous Coward]

It was no technicality.

They did not push a solution wich fufilled the rules for pushing a solution in the first place. So it was rejected.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[CaptainDefragged]

No it's more like this:
Optus spent $5 million creating a 900 page bid proposing an open playing field. I don't think the details are public yet, but that link has the media release. They also fronted a $5 million bond.
Telstra sent in a 14 page memo saying something along the lines of "we'll do it as long as you guarantee our infrastructure monopoly and we wont pay the bond, but we promise to put in $5 billion".
If this gets up, this is a win for all Australian Internet users. "Telstra has said entry-level access to its proposed NBN would start at $39.95 per month for a 1 megabit per second connection with 200MB of download capacity."[ref] This is what we could look forward to under Telstra. More of the same shite. That 200mb includes backhaul too.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[CaptainDefragged]

Sorry to double post.. this is a good article on it too.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats the sun got to do with this?

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[ChodeMaster]

I'm not trying to defend Conroy or anything here (I dislike him, his policies and the way he acts politically as much as any sensible Australian nerd with a love of uncensored internet), but are you actually trying to imply that Conroy had something to do with iinet being sued by film companies? p

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[mgblst]

What an idiotic statement. So somehow Conroy, who is a misguided prick, forced Telstra to submit a joke bid of 12 pages, compared to real bids of hundreds of pages. Conroy strong armed Telstra to not mention small businesses, a major pre-requisite of the bid, and the reason they are kicked out of the process.

Coincidence, yes.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Whiteox]

I'll quote this from ABC earlier on as it shows a different tack:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the decision to exclude Telstra from bidding to build the national broadband network was made at arm's length from the Federal Government.
Telstra submitted a brief proposal instead of a full bid because it was not satisfied there was enough detail from the Government on regulatory requirements.
Telstra says it has been excluded because it did not say how it would include small and medium businesses in the network's construction.
The telco has accused the Government of using a peripheral issue to block it from winning the tender.

But Mr Rudd has said the decision was made by an independent panel assessing all of the bids and the project is still on track.

"We've regarded this as a necessary investment in the nation's infrastructure and we would do so on the basis of a competitive tender process," he said.
"That panel that's been at work has been full at arm's length from Government and has reached its own conclusions.

*snip*

Still optimistic
However Telstra remains hopeful it still has a chance to build the national broadband network despite being excluded from formal consideration.
A media analyst from stockbroker BBY, Mark McDonnell, has told ABC Radio's The World Today the exclusion is a dramatic development for the telco.
"It potentially spells the end of Telstra's aspirations for re-eingineering its network to provide high-speed broadband," he said.
But in a briefing with analysts, Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo has argued it is not the end of the road for the company.
He says the Government may decide to reengage with Telstra if the other three national bids are inadequate.
Mr McDonnell says there could be more to the Government's decision than has been publicly disclosed.
"The question then is whether this is really part of some sort of gaming process, trying to soften up Telstra with a plan to ultimately reengage with them," he said.
"That is probably the most optimistic view you could take from a Telstra perspective on this, or in fact whether there is some other agenda."
Telstra shares have fallen more than 7 per cent in an overall strong day for the market.

This was earlier on and has fallen out of the RSS feeds.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/15/2446644.htm

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[aarggh]

Although I think Senator Conroy is an ignoramus of the highest order, full kudos to the government for not bending the rules just because Telstra wants it. Telstra has always done it's absolute best to stifle any form of innovation that doesn't generate obscene amounts of money ONLY for Telstra, all the while p*ssing on our backs and telling us it's raining. I live in a 60-80 year old suburb 20 mins from the city and my home is 4.6k's from the exchange! It took me 5 years when we moved to get DSL. No equipment was changed or upgraded, Telstra simply downgraded the test requirements so my home JUST fell into a supported speed and reliability range. I still have to have a Telstra phoneline just so I can have DSL provided by another company.

There are any number of very capable providers out there who can step up to the plate, and provide a service without the crap you have to put up with Telstra. It's about time Sol got told where to go!

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Malekin]

Conroy rarely comments on the filter because he does not support it.

You've stated this a number of times but I don't buy it. He may be Labor, but he's right wing and socially conservative. He's a headkicker - a politician who is in it for the politics and not to represent the will of his electorate. He's so religious he earned himself the nickname "the altar boy."

The policy for the mandatory clean feed was written and put in place after he was given the portfolio. Everything I've seen points What evidence do you have to support your claim?

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Malekin]

Everything I've seen points What evidence do you have to support your claim?

*Everything I've seen points to him personally supporting this policy.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they included every significant detail on how they intended to liase and include small business in the process.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[TapeCutter]

"The policy for the mandatory clean feed was written and put in place after he was given the portfolio."

That was my point, combined with fact that the NBN was "in the works" under Howard it debunks the OP's "coincidence" idea.

"What evidence do you have to support your claim?"

Conroy maybe the altar boy but Fielding is the rabid preacher who has got labor by the short and curlys (Hanson did pretty much the same thing to the liberals). The greens and the liberals have both stated they will not support a mandatory filter and they intend to block it in the senate - so it's not going anywhere fast. - That, the balance of power thing and the preference deals are all public knowledge but are certainly not proof positive.

Perhaps I've watched to much "Yes Minister" but the test of my armchair theory will be if Fielding consistently votes with Labor on the big ticket items that are opposed by the liberals but supported by the greens. I don't hear Conroy personally supporting a mandatory filter (especially recently), what I hear is another Peter Garrett, ie: someone going through the motions of demonstrating party loyalty. Here is a random article from a quick "fielding filter" search on google, try and find where Conroy personally supports it, go to the end and read what Fielding said.

"He's a headkicker - a politician who is in it for the politics"

I agree wholeheartedly but you have to get close to someone to kick them in the head, why else would he be forging ahead with what he knows will not pass the senate other than to kick someone's head? - Have any Machevellian theories as to who that someone is?

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[GaryPatterson]

Although I think Senator Conroy is an ignoramus of the highest order...

Off-topic, but what is it with tech-ministers in this country? We had the Worlds Biggest Luddite for years, Helen Coonan and now this Conroy bozo.

Do they have to take a test of ultra-basic IT literacy, and only the real no-hopers get the job?

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[caitsith01]

The greens and the liberals have both stated they will not support a mandatory filter and they intend to block it in the senate - so it's not going anywhere fast.

Bad news, there's not going to be anything to block - the laws permitting the filter are already in place. Howard may not have been developing the filter itself, but he had already put the legislative framework in place.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[Nefarious Wheel]

Do they have to take a test of ultra-basic IT literacy, and only the real no-hopers get the job?

This will hopefully change once it becomes fashionable, because the US President is doing it.~

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[TapeCutter]

I haven't heard that before, got a link?

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[crafty.munchkin]

[citation needed] i haven't heard anywhere that what you describe happened - got a link?

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[cojoco]

This story is more complicated than that.

The Australian Labor Party is *very* favourably disposed to the Internet Filter, as it was originally mooted *not* by the Christians, but by the Australia Institute, a left wing think-tank.

I would be very careful in this area; the filter might not be as dead as you think.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[aarggh]

I think it's the old method of promoting imcompetence to make yourself look superb by comparison, I know of several large companies that have management who employ this tactic.

Re:Senator Conroy's handiwork

[TapeCutter]

Scratching the surface of any political story reveals it's onion like nature and that is a layer I didn't know about.

"I would be very careful in this area; the filter might not be as dead as you think"

I'm not perturbed by being wrong in my pet political theories, I'm just trying to peel back a few layers and think a good theory needs testing. However in this case I really do hope you're wrong, not the least because if I am wrong that means I will feel compelled to get off my arse and make it 7001 protesters.

Personally I think kiddie porn (ie: pre-pubecent children) should come under the relm of evidence of a crime, idealy the privacy of the child demands that they should in some way control with the force of law what happens to any images found after the network is shut down. I have no objection to law enforcement getting a warrant and spying on kiddie porn sites even if it's to enforce a default control for the child. IMHO the pratice of allowing kiddie porn to linger on the net combined with international cooperation (interpol, fbi, etc) to understand the social-networks has done more to bust rock spiders than it has to breed them. I also don't see viewing kidde porn and snuff movies as purely a thought crime, I see it as creating a market for the worst kind of criminals.

A little OT but did you notice the story about the guy who lost his appeal in the simpsons porn case, I read a few articles and they were all the same, where was the rest of the story? - Why was he searched and arrested in the first place? Why no google hits on the original arrest, court case, etc? - A few days later and a major international kiddie porn ring is simultaneously busted here and in a bunch of other countries, my theory is most people will only remeber the simpsons porn story....

So, this means faster pr0n, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oz has been suffering with overpriced bandwidth for a very long time.

Re:So, this means faster pr0n, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia's prices seem rather good to me. In many parts of the world, perhaps even most, you can't even get internet as fast as most Aussies can. 7Mbps is considered blazing in those places. For under $35 per month, you can get as much data as most Australians use, and at speeds of up to 24Mbps. For those who need unusually large amounts of data, additional data costs $1/GB, which is cheap.

Re:So, this means faster pr0n, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

is this a parody? those speeds are exceptional in much of the western world and without the ridiculous limits

$1GB is also an order of magnitude more expensive than costs

Re:So, this means faster pr0n, right?

[Whiteox]

Errmmm... $50/month buys you 12GB@1.5Mbps if you can get ADSL1 (my plan also includes 48GB off-peak). Those who can get ADSL2 get faster speeds and more capacity for the price.
Those who can't get either are on dialup or satellite, both suck very badly.

non compliant

[Anonymous Coward]

They submit a non-compliant bid, really what did they expect.

Bid Rejected - http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24800767-15306,00.html
Govt hits back at Telstra - http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24802044-15306,00.html

Of particular interest is this snippet form the above stories:
"The independent expert panel charged with assessing the bids obtained five separate pieces of legal advice which said it could not consider Telstra's bid.

That advice was from internal government lawyers; the Australian Government Solicitor; respected private law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth; senior counsel appointed by Corrs; and finally, the Solicitor-General, the Government's top legal advisor."

There were four conditions that RFP documents had to meet:
* The document must be written in English.
* The measurements used within must meet Australian standards.
* The proposal must be signed.
* The document must include a plan for how SMEs will be involved.

Telstra didn't submit anything for point 4. Now for a multi billion dollar proposal, you should at least submit a compliant bid. Instead they submitted a document with their own terms and promised "more information" if the Govt agreed to THEIR terms.

Re:non compliant

[solanum]

Mod parent up. This is all part of Telstra's brinkmanship with the government here. They tried the same thing with ADSL2, where they wanted permission to exclude/charge higher prices to competitors (despite having a monopoly on the 'last mile', so delayed making ADSL2 available to the public. In the end, the main competitors got together and put their own ADSL2 DSLAMS in place, so Telstra were forced to start allowing users onto their ADSL2 network after all.

In this case Telstra claim no one else can do it other than them, so have refused to put a proper bid in in the hope they can get more out of the government.

Re:non compliant

[Whiteox]

Yeah but it's not Telstra per say, it's Sol Trujillo.
Evidently he stuffed up another Telco in the USA. Read about it a year ago but can't find the links. Somewhere in the mid-west I think.

Re:non compliant

[rsmith-mac]

The document must include a plan for how SMEs will be involved.

Perhaps this is an Aussie thing, but what do they mean when they are talking about "involving" Small and Medium Enterprises? Is this about subcontracting work to other companies? Making the final service affordable to smaller businesses? Etc. It's a very non-descriptive statement.

Re:non compliant

[Anonymous Coward]

They did not do the "same thing" with ADSL2. There was never a government bid for Telstra to make its ADSL2 DSLAMs available. Further, Telstra was not "forced" to make ADSL2 available - that was a decision made by Telstra of their own volition (previously, they stated that they would only make it available on grounds that Telstra would not be forced to wholesale it).

haha

[Idiomatick]

Thats what those trouble makers get for being against the scary Australian firewall. Or something unrelated. This summary is hard to decipher but as a proud /.er i refuse to RTFA as my forefathers did before me

Telstra tried to pull a Microsoft

[QuantumG]

They're afraid of being broken up (because they're a monopoly) so they tried to put conditions on their bid. The government slapped 'em back into their place. Now they're crying about it.

Re:Telstra tried to pull a Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear hear , the 800 pound gorilla has been puled up in its tracks , they gambled and lost ........

Hope we get some real competition in the industry

No Competition?

[SlightOverdose]

Why wouldn't the government allow them to compete?

Re:No Competition?

[Petrushka]

Why wouldn't the government allow them to compete?

Revenge.

Re:No Competition?

[Anonymous Coward]

Govt hits back at Telstra - http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24802044-15306,00.html

Of particular interest is this snippet form the above story:
"The independent expert panel charged with assessing the bids obtained five separate pieces of legal advice which said it could not consider Telstra's bid.

That advice was from internal government lawyers; the Australian Government Solicitor; respected private law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth; senior counsel appointed by Corrs; and finally, the Solicitor-General, the Government's top legal advisor."

Long story short- Telstra screwed themselves becuase they submit a non-compliant bid. They CAN'T accept the bid because if they do, the other parties that did submit compliant bids could possibly sue them.

Re:No Competition?

[mcbridematt]

They submitted a 13 page 'proposal' at the last minute while (apparently) even the smallest of the bids were throughly detailed.

I bet when each bidder had to front the 'expert panel' on the weekend the panel decided not to waste their time entertaining a 'proposal'. Being a 13-page 'proposal' the lawyers would've had no trouble finding missing bits.

Besides, the process is pretty lame. The goal was to build the exact same proposal that Telstra came out with in 2005 - $4billion AUD for FTTN(which will be obsolete in 10 years anyway), and only do FTTH in brand new developments.

Its been pointed out by the head of another ISP (Internode, who I use) that Telstra could simply build a FiOS-style FTTH network and keep it to themselves, with no strings attached while the older PSTN remains. Keep in mind that Telstra's entire goal throughout this process has been to decimate the competitive environment that exists. There are ADSL2+ plans which offer 100x more value than the proposed wholesale FTTN port price!

Re:No Competition?

[Anonymous Coward]

They had just as much chance as everyone else to 'compete' in this race. Telstra decided to get cocky only submitted 15 page plan with absolutely no detail because they thought they had it in the bag. Meanwhile all the other contenders put in highly detailed plans with everything that was requested by the government for consideration in the process.

Last time I checked (at least when I was in school), if your essay doesn't address the topic and doesn't meet the word count, you get a FAIL.

Re:No Competition?

[SlightOverdose]

I should clarify my point.

They don't win the government grant, fine

But why not let them build their own network with their own money parallel to this? Explicitly forbidding this seems a little too socialist.

Re:No Competition?

[Nefarious Wheel]

They submitted a 13 page 'proposal' at the last minute while (apparently) even the smallest of the bids were throughly detailed.

Having been in The Machine before (what Australian contractor hasn't been that hungry at least once?) I suspect they simply couldn't get it together to make the bid. Sol decimated the Telstra bureaucracy. This is both good and bad; the latter because they have utterly no clue how to communicate internally any more. No way is that executive team going to do any bid work to that level any more, they just don't have it in them. Big isn't necessarily muscular. That dog is too old to go hunting.

Re:No Competition?

[Gideon Fubar]

They haven't been specifically forbidden. They're just not going to be in the running for this particular lot of government funding.

Telstra won't build their own network because they don't want to have to spend their own money on it. They have been given a free ride and are complaining now that they have to actually do some work.

Re:No Competition?

[SlightOverdose]

Directly from the Slashdot summary:

"The government may now take steps to legislate so that Telstra can't build a network that competes with the NBN"

Re:No Competition?

[Gideon Fubar]

Yes, may. As opposed to have.

Turns out that speculation about the future doesn't directly influence fact in the present, no matter how hopeful it is.

Re:No Competition?

[jman11]

For the same reason you don't have a second set of water pipes running up to your house. Setting up a nationwide network of telecommunications equipment is very expensive.

Businesses competing is a great way to improve efficiency, However infrastructure is usually not done with competitive marketplaces because the large waste in constructing these redundant systems will never be reclaimed by the efficiencies introduced by market economics.

There have been numerous attempts to introduce market economics. Many western countries now have a choice of supplier or maintenance for utilities. However duplicating the entire network is hugely wasteful.

Re:No Competition?

[MadMidnightBomber]

They submitted 10-20 pages for the Request For Tender (or whatever it's called). That's barely enough to buy half a rack of servers - the technical Aussie term for this would be "taking the f***ing piss".

Re:No Competition?

[Leafheart]

Turns out that speculation about the future doesn't directly influence fact in the present, no matter how hopeful it is.

You don't follow the stock market much, do you?

Re:No Competition?

[Gideon Fubar]

Point taken and noted ;)

In this case though, the real story is that Telstra basically told the government they weren't going to bother with a FTTN network if they didn't get funding for it, and then made a token effort in the selection process. If Telstra don't make a new fiber network, it won't be because the government mandates it; They'll just be focusing on mobile and wireless stuff instead.

Besides, i think it's pretty obvious that laws forbidding Telstra from building a network are pure speculation on the part of the poster. I really hope so anyway.

Re:No Competition?

[Leafheart]

Yeah I know. I agree with others that said Telstra shouldn't have expect anything different. They didn't comply with the bid process. And was expected that they would be ditched.

I'm sure the government is thanking them for been so obnoxious and allowing it to ditch Telstra within the limits of the law, and without much effort.

Re:No Competition?

[Firethorn]

"The government may now take steps to legislate so that Telstra can't build a network that competes with the NBN"

Now, I'll admit that I'm not that familiar with Australian legislative processes, but from my experience with the US one, wouldn't they be able to do this no matter what's going on, assuming they got a big enough bug up their butt?

Going on, it sounds like I should be glad to not have to deal with Telstra. Deutsch Telecom was bad enough when I was in Germany. Now I'm with a local coop, and love them.

biting the hand that feeds?

[vvk]

Where some say coincidence,
I say consequence !!!

Nope. Telstra was anti-censorship.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. According to TFA 'The reasoning allegedly given by the Commonwealth for the exclusion is that Telstra did not include a plan for how to involve small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the building of the NBN when Telstra lodged its NBN proposal on 26 November.' Apparently (a quickie Google search confirms this) it wasn't even the case that Telstra sought to exclude SMEs, but they simply hadn't included a proposal upfront, something which the government could easily have asked for, but they didn't. So officially, Telstra has been kicked out of the bidding process on a trivial technicality. So that can't be the real reason.
However, if you figure out who is responsible for the decision, it turns out to be the same guy who was responsible for the Australian censorship plans, which Telstra opposed. So I think that's the real reason. However, after the recent rally, the government can't get away with actually saying that, it would cost too many votes. So they offer as a substitute an opaque technicality that the average voter will not understand, with a faint suggestion of legal unavoidability.
Viewing it from this angle, the picture is relatively simple. The goverment simply didn't want a company that opposes their censorship plans to do the backbone of their national broadband network. As usual, it's all about control.

Re:Nope. Telstra was anti-censorship.

[QuantumG]

You're on crack. Take off the tin foil hat. Telstra made demands of the government in their bid, the government declined to be bullied. It's that simple.

Re:Nope. Telstra was anti-censorship.

[lendude]

FFS, get back to work Sol...

Re:Nope. Telstra was anti-censorship.

[deniable]

The government did ask for it. It was in the Request for Tender. Those things are iron-clad for a reason. If they don't bounce non-conforming tenders any slashdotter could submit a one-page proposal and expect equal treatment. Now, there's a thought.

Re:Nope. Telstra was anti-censorship.

[MadMidnightBomber]

Dear Mr. Rudd,

Could I have 4.7bn AUD please? kthxbye.

Re:Nope. Telstra was anti-censorship.

[obeythefist]

The government had 5 very serious legal consultations on the process including the Solicitor General. The RFP must be answered adequately and correctly from a legal perspective. Every bidder except for Telstra managed to do so. Because Telstra did not meet the requirements of the RFP, the government had no legal choice but to remove them from the process. You cannot suggest with any reasonable degree of sanity that the Australian Solicitor General's interpretation of Australian Law is not at least adequate in this case.

If the government allowed Telstra into the bidding process despite the fact that everyone new their response to the RFP wasn't legally sound, every single other bidder could have sued the government and won on solid legal grounds.

Whether you believe Telstra is a hard working, competitive company with a good track record of quality infrastructure and excellent employee conditions, or a violent aggressive monopoliser deliberately holding back Australian internet infrastructure to prevent widespread adoption of VoIP and to preserve the stranglehold on the copper network is up to the individual (although evidence should help people make up their own minds), the legalities of this present circumstance are plain and simple.

All or nothing bet

[shirro]

Sol gambled and the shareholders lost. A triumph of greed over common sense. Has his reality distortion field finally shattered?

The current Telstra management seemed to have brought a lot of anti-regulation baggage with them from the US. They seemed unable or unwilling to adapt their management style to the realities of operating in Australia.

A lower return to shareholders would still have been a return but they had to be greedy. Now they might be a footnote in the countries broadband history.

Re:All or nothing bet

[c_g_hills]

"Trujillo's final dramatic quote to the analysts was "Nothing Stops Telstra"." (Business Spectator)

The man reeks of arrogance. Nothing good can come of letting the incumbant monopoly. I hope that Australia ends up with the network it really needs, rather than the one that Telstra has given them.

Re:All or nothing bet

[Antique Geekmeister]

The shareholders didn't necessarily lose. Simply increasing the size of a business by taking on a new venture is not necessarily good for a business, and it's not clear this whole national network is going to make money for the providers. It could be a lead-in for more profitable services, but it could also be a huge money pit for the telco serving it if they have the wrong technologies, wrong management, or wrong policies to handle it.

In fact, from what I'm seeing about Telstra, it would probably break them to try and manage such a different service.

Re:All or nothing bet

[dbIII]

The shareholders get no say. A good example is that they voted against Sol's annual bonus (or around $13 million) for leading Telstra into decline. The board overuled them. Every time Sol say's he has to do something because it's for the shareholders he just makes them angry with the transparent lie.

It will be driven into the ground and Sol with leave with his millions. Then the taxpayers will have to take up the bill since no private company will touch whatever smoking ruins are left.

Re:All or nothing bet

[Antique Geekmeister]

OK, that makes sense. But that still doesn't make clear whether shareholders lost money by Telstra screwing up the possibility of participating in this effort.

Re:All or nothing bet

[daver00]

I think its a bit short sighted to say Sol has lead Telstra into decline. Barring yesterdays stock tumble Telstra stock has been moving up against the tsunami that is the current financial crisis. I'd say that shows something at least. I'm no fan of Telstra, but Sol is infinitely more capable than his bumbling predecessor. The declines were more about restructuring the company, Sol inherited a company in dramatic decline under Zwitkowski, and has turned it around at least somewhat. You have to give him some credit.

Re:All or nothing bet

[dbIII]

I think its a bit short sighted to say Sol has lead Telstra into decline

We've had a few years of him now.

but Sol is infinitely more capable than his bumbling predecessor.

That is possible but there is as yet no evidence - any competance has been very well hidden. There have been a lot of loud announcements of success that have been outright and transparent lies and thus had not even the benefit of temporarily raising the share price.

Sol inherited a company in dramatic decline under Zwitkowski, and has turned it around at least somewhat. You have to give him some credit

Most of it has been removing current management and suppliers and replacing them with mostly untalented cronies. IMHO he has been rapidly increasing the decline according to the financial pages in daily newspapers.

I think his term is going to be an example of truly epic failure. He has mismanaged the company badly and appears to have almost completely lost the respect of employees. It will be all conveniently blamed on unions (there is a lot of strike action planned according the news - in my opinion it will not resolve anything and Telstra will just replace qualified staff with unqualified or cut services furthur) and the ALP led government for not letting him have a monopoly or introduce slave labour or something. Ziggy had the job of treading water and getting people ready for the idea of a private Telstra - Sol appears to be the concrete boots that will sink the whole thing and then leave the wreck for plunder.

Listen to some of his announcements and compare them to reality and you'll see how badly things are being run.

Re:All or nothing bet

[daver00]

Look, I have at least some knowledge of Telstra, and I can tell you Sol is on track. They are making more money, they are meeting targets, and most importantly Telstra shares, for the first time since the T2 sale, have been going up.

That is the measure of a CEO's performance, and by that measure Sol has been a success. You might want to include some actual examples next time you try to rubuke this, but you cannot argue with this fact: In the recent financial crisis, which has caused serious damage to stock across the board (mining companies down ridiculous amounts!), Telstra stock has been rising in value. I don't know how you can look at that fact and just ignore it, then go on with a ideological position that Sol is a failure because you just think so. The evidence says the exact opposite.

Re:All or nothing bet

[dbIII]

they are meeting targets

Such as?

The IT and financial pages are full of stories about Telstra's missed targets and the problems with a system from Accenture (previously Andersons) and a long list of various other stuffups. Please let me know the positive examples so I that I know what you are talking about, because it certainly isn't making it into the press.

Re:All or nothing bet

[daver00]

So what? The tech media doesn't report accurately on the performance of any given company, especially when it comes to Telstra, they are about as hostile as can be. Telstra is on track for financial targets and company restructuring, they have slimmed down their workforce and improved their bottom line, as well as opened up a whole new market in mobile broadband and it has been a great success story for the company. For once they were able to avoid the government forcing to share the wealth around, and for the first time since the T2 sale their stock price is going UP.

If they are off track, why is it that their stock price has been rising in the midst of the current financial downturn? Can you explain that to me? Rio Tinto is down a ridiculous amount, BHP is down, most other mining stock: the safest blue chip companies in the country are all down significant amounts. And yet Telstra is up... and this is failure?

If Sol had not been a complete success for the company the board would have had off with him years ago. This is not the case. Sol was always a contentious selection and there has always been significant displeasure amongst the shareholders leveled toward him. The government in particular was not impressed with Sol, ever. And yet he remains. All the indicators suggest he has been a success story for the company, so can you explain to me again how he is driving Telstra into the ground?

Re:All or nothing bet

[dbIII]

Perhaps you are actually right and all the media I'm repeating is wrong if you are actually looking at things from the inside. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and let's see where things are next year.

Hopefully next year there will not be the cop-out that Sol could have been a contender if the unions and the government gave him a chance.

It may not have been meant to be a nasty debating trick to compare this weeks mining stocks to Telstra stocks over the last few years but it was comes across as one. Anyway, isn't Telstra's stock down a long way from when Sol was first appointed? Didn't it also drop quite a bit over the last week while you are saying the stock is up? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:All or nothing bet

[daver00]

Look, I'm being a Telstra fanboy, I hate Telstra with a passion. I have a friend or two on the inside, missus used to work there. They are assholes of the highest order, but there is a lot of confidence right now that things are on track. Right up until this recent situation, but I doubt that will change much. I am simply stating what I see as a purely pragmatic position: I want the NBN to go ahead, as soon as possible, the only thing that kicking Telstra out of the bidding process has done is prolong that eventuality. Hell I would LOVE to see Optus win the tender, that would be fantastic, but do you really think that things will then go ahead smoothly if Telstra is pissed off about the whole thing? They own everything for christs sake! This shit will not happen without their FTTN network being a part of it, and their copper, and everything else they own.

To some degree, yes it was a bit mean of me to compare Telstra stock to mining stock recently, but at the same time Telstra stock HAS been bucking the trend of the overall stock market, a trend which has been going on for weeks now, not just recently and not just mining stock, ALL stock. Now Even the recent fall of Telstra, 10%... Rio Tinto is down something like 70-80%!!

Yes, Telstra stock went down a bit after Sol took over, but this is a reflection of Ziggy and his ridiculously shithouse managing of the company. Its like turning a container ship. Ziggy was the governments lap dog, and it hurt the company. Sol spent his first years sacking people and spending BIG on infrastructure, so yes the company went through a rough patch. But the evidence is now out: Telstra has been going up and the rest of the stock market has been going down. Like him or hate him Sol has been good for the company. There is just a boatload of propaganda out there that says the opposite. He was employed specifically to be a government head kicker after all, and the Howard government was all to happy to play politics with an appointment they did not approve of. Seems Rudd is following suit.

Look, we ALL hate Telstra, and with good reason! But I don't like facts to be clouded by opinion, hearsay and rumour. Honestly I wish to god (or fsm) that Telstra was being driven into the ground, if they went bankrupt we could go ahead with a structural separation! But its just not what the evidence is suggesting.

Science and reason my friend! And I do apologise for being a bit earnest, but thats just me so, well sorry.

Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[aweraw]

If I may interject here for a second - your Stralyin is lacking in authenticity...

That last phrase should have been should have been: GARNGIT FARKED!

Next Canada

[EmperorOfCanada]

Please let this happen in Canada! We have a few cell companies that simply refuse to compete. We need them barred from the next few bandwidth auctions. It was recently calculated that sending text messages in Canada costs more per byte than data sent from the Hubble telescope. Another comparison showed that what costs $1 to send via a normal high-speed connection would cost $16 Million via a cell phone in Canada. (no exaggeration)

Re:Next Canada

[mjwx]

Please let this happen in Canada! We have a few cell companies that simply refuse to compete.

Sorry mate but we have multiple Mobile providers in Australia and they still refuse to compete on anything beyond a superficial level (just enough to keep the competition watchdog off their backs) and they will attempt to force you into a contract (difficult to find a Pre-paid plan with credit that lasts longer then 30 days in Australia, they want their monthly danegeld from you one way or another).

Also the shafting you Canadians get from your broadband providers is nothing like the shafting we Aussies get. We pay about (aboot) A$60 for 30 GB downloads and only 10 GB's can be used between the hours of 7AM and 12 AM (the 2/3rds of the day most people are awake). Add to that the A$30 line fee (Naked DSL exists here but it costs more for the actual DSL service provision and ends up being about A$10 cheaper and that's if you don't want a phone service).

I've been considering trying to find employment up in Canada to get away from the shafting and political madness here.

Re:Next Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you man. Snow, legal bud and french speaking girls to turn me on as they reject me. Wowzers.

Re:Next Canada

[bartok]

French girl get turned on by the accent actually (those that can understand whatever it is you're saying it at least ;)

Re:Next Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some decent value plans to be had in Australia though - if you look beyond the obvious ripoffs (telstra and optus broadband plans) you'll find ISPs like TPG offering 70gb/mon (35gb each on and offpeak) for the $AU60 you mentioned. The $20/mon mobile phone plan they have recently started offering is pretty decent as well - I switched to it since I was forced to pay as much to keep at least some credit active on my prepaid mobile all the time, but I get a lot more for my $20 on this plan, and there's no contract.

Having said that, most ISPs charge substantially more than that. A quick look at optus' site shows that your $60 will only get you 15gb, although you wouldn't have to worry about off/onpeak with them.

Re:Next Canada

[mjwx]

mate, the point is over here. It's easy to miss seeing as it's large, yellow with 6ft letters that say POINT in fire engine red.

The $20/mon mobile phone plan they have recently started offering is pretty decent as well

I don't have a plan because I don't need a plan as I don't spend A$20 a month on my bloody mobile as hard as that is to believe and I'd rather not swallow that cost (I've got better plans for A$240 a year then to waste it on a service I don't use). I want my A$30 recharge to last until I use it. I'll accept a reasonable 6 month limit but 30 days from the time of recharge to use all your credit is downright ridiculous. How is that different from a plan? Superficial differences aside the Telco's want you to pay monthly no matter how you use your phone and will attempt to force you in what ever way possible.

Before you bring it up, yes I do know about certain Optus and Telstra plans that last longer than 30 days. On Telstra you need to pay more for your credit not to expire, for example, A$30 = 1 month, A$50 = two months A$100 = 6 months, do we see the pattern here? Any Optus plans that last longer than 30 days do not include data and have the worst call rates.

if you look beyond the obvious ripoffs (telstra and optus broadband plans) you'll find ISPs like TPG offering 70gb/mon (35gb each on and offpeak) for the $AU60 you mentioned

I was pointing out the average. If we look at TPG, they route everyone through a caching proxy which has continual issues (just look on whirlpool). Secondly TPG is not available everywhere in Australia, in Perth WA they have about 3 enabled exchanges. Personally I'd much rather switch to Internode but they aren't available in my area either.

As usual headline is totally wrong.

[timmarhy]

No where does it say they are making laws to keep telstra out. they did however reject telstra's non compliant bid, and i didn't suprise me in the slightest they are sick of Trujillo's bullshit. he keeps trying to claim telstra are the only company that can build a national network. seriously who does he think he is fooling. there is a dozen companies in oz that could build a better network than telstra. this along with constant hollow threats of not building the new network, when no one wants them to be involved to begin with are enough to make anyone sick to death of them.

IMHO Trujillo needs to get it through his thick head that 15 billion in tax payers money is going to come with strings attached, like it or not.

Re:As usual headline is totally wrong.

[Nefarious Wheel]

Not to mention that most customers would prefer to spend their money on a vendor they can trust. With their saber rattling over regulatory constraints (and deregulation is not a popular song just now, is it?) using some fairly egregious terms, I doubt that anybody would want to spend money in Telstra's direction.

You can only insult your customers so often before you lose their attention. We know at this point it would be simply good money after bad, just like the US Bush-era Information Superhighway spend. I don't care if the competition has its HQ in Singapore. Screw 'em if we can't get a decent ROI.

Re:As usual headline is totally wrong.

[daver00]

Sol is not interested in $15 billion taxpayer dollars, Telstra explicitly requested that they be given the money as a loan, not a grant, they don't want strings.

I think a lot of posters are getting bits and pieces of this story right but have failed to put this all into the wider context. Firstly, the half assed tender is nothing amazing, this is how Telstra plays ball, at all levels. What has happened here is the government gave this decision making power to a bunch of public servants, told them they hold the cards and elected officials refused to take part in any negotiations. Now forgive me if I'm going against the grain here but that seems a little optimistic to me. Essentially the government drew up guidelines and declared they were perfect and thus further negotiation on such an enormous public works project was not necessary. A rookie governments mistake, I believe.

Now Telstra, being Telstra, had demands it wanted met. I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of whether these demands were justified or not, I'm just saying this is where they stood. Of note, they wanted two things, they did not want public money with strings that could possibly lead to future separation of the company and its infrastructure, and they wanted an explicit and very legally binding guarantee that there would be no separation in the future. I believe this government is quietly in favour of a structural separation and is at least giving it some thought (its a legal minefield but I believe the only real solution to our current telecommunications quagmire).

So Telstra, as it always does, submits a half baked tender expecting the relevant minister to come knocking and asking what needs to be discussed to fill in the blanks. Telstra, of course has the rest of the proposal ready (some 5000 pages, or so I have read) but not in a form that would be accepted without further negotiations. This time however, the government was not open to negotiations. Read that as you wish but I think only a highly questionable understanding of the extreme situation in this country would lead you to believe this plan can go ahead without Telstra. They literally hold all the cards, whoever wins the bid cannot believe for a second that you could build a network on this scale and not interact with Telstra. Oh yes people think there is competition in infrastructure, but that is a myth. A handful of small companies own hardware that is tacked on to the end of Telstras vast network, there is some that belongs to Optus but not in any significant and coherent way. Telstra literally owns all the important bits, and will be on board however this plan goes ahead, there is no avoiding it.

This result is not good for Australia. I can just about guarantee that our shiny new broadband network will not go ahead until Telstra is on board in some way, and unfortunate as it is this proabably means they will be the ones with the tender. In the end the only losers right now are us, the Australian internet users. Hell I'm ok, I've got my ADLS2+, but theres a whole crapload more people out there who don't.

I know this is slashdot and therefore ideology reigns supreme over political pragmatism, but in this case we lost, the government lost, Telstra lost, and if Telstra lost then whoever wins the tender also lost, Telstra will play it that way. Thats a pretty damn dismal situation, and honestly it could have been avoided if the damn government wasn't so hell bent on avoiding negotiations. Its a shitty situation but we have been lumped with it, so we need to work with it if we want our internets. I'm just saying is all.

Re:As usual headline is totally wrong.

[obeythefist]

Well, to some extent what the parent has written is true, however, he's declined to note a couple of key facts that are vital in understanding the issues at hand.

1) Telstra didn't submit a legally compliant bid. No matter what else is going on, if the government had accepted it, they would be immediately sued by the other bidders, and they would lose. The government had "public servants" look at the situation, but the parent declines to mention that those public servants include such individuals as the Solicitor General. If Telstra is so arrogant or incompetent they can't follow a pretty basic set of rules when tendering, they should not be trusted with even a loan of taxpayers money.

2) Telstra's manifest failure at driving forward the growth of internet infrastructure in Australia is the whole reason we need an NBN in the first place.

3) If Telstra is somehow empowered to prevent the growth of a fair and competitive broadband infrastructure, ostensibly through leveraging their monopoly stranglehold on Australian telecommunications infrastructure, then the problem again is not one of the Australian government but one of Telstra causing harm to the people of Australia. This can be remedied by seperating the monopoly part of Telstra from the part of Telstra which is motivated to abuse that monopoly, creating a neutral infrastructure wholesaler and a large retailer, thus encouraging competition and enriching the quality of Australian telecommunications.

While the situation is currently dismal and has been for some time, mostly due to Telstra's significant damage to Australia's telco industry, this is exactly the medicine that Australia needs to cut away the cancer and move into a more progressive market.

Re:As usual headline is totally wrong.

[daver00]

Look I agree, but its not entirely true that this was the full tender that Telstra was going to submit. They were saying, I believe, "heres some of it, but we need the rules changed before we give you the rest". This is just how Telstra always works, and I make no judgement as to whether this is a good or a bad thing. I do however assert that excluding Telstra from this whole process is utterly stupid at the end of the day, and that is the shitty situation we are in. Oh and by the way I never said Telstra submitted a lawful tender, but I'm not so sure the government went about this the right way in any case. Yes Telstra is arrogant but it is not incompetent, they simply expected that the defenition of 'lawful tender' would be changed to suit them, at leas in part, now I know you and everyone will balk at that notion but this is the world of gigantic corporates who own everything, and this is what Telstra will fight for. I'm not saying TElstra deserves what it wants, but I am saying that the government should negotiate with them in the interest of the country, as such this is a dual failure of both the government and Telstra. Politics is dirty business, even if it seems morally and legally wrong, we are now in a much worse place with the NBN much farther away than we were two days ago. I don't believe that this situation was inevitable.

Now on the other issue: structural separation, the reality is how do you do it? Do you think its going to be lawful to simply take the assets away from a company? They would need to be purchased, and Telstra does not have them up for sale. I think any attempt by the government to force a re-nationalisation of infrastructure will be met with high court proceedings, and Telstra will have a strong case. Now heres the really messy part: much of their infrastructure has now been built by Telstra the corporate, not Telecom to government department. So its shareholders money that has gone into building say the NextG network, or a lot of the FTTN stuff they have now. I think it is this part that holds the separation back, and this is the glaring failure of the Howard government when the sale went ahead. Sure, give a company all the nations telecommunications infrastructure and simply expect them to play nice... thats going to work! Which ever way you look at it a structural separation will be expensive and messy for the government, and a death knell for Telstra. How do you think it will be viewed by foreign investors if our government makes it legally acceptable to nationalise infrastructure? Whether they legislate or take it to the courts the result is the same: You have enshrined the right to nationalisation in law, and set precedent for acting upon it. This is not going to look good to an investor!

The best solution would be to let the company implode somehow and then follow the american model: nationalise when they ask for it. Pity, Telstra is performing well in the financial crisis (at least it was).

Basically, we are all doomed, and you've got one little man to blame: Johnny Howard.

Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[ElAurian]

There's no L in Straya. Mate.

Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is a seppo? Have you just used urban dictionary to try and sound more Aussie for a reason?

To echo another poster, GIT FARKED, YA FARKEN TOOL

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Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[Anonymous Coward]

hehehe.. oi dad there's a broadband network in the trading post for $15 billion...

struth!! tell em their farkin dreamin'!

Hardly a Win

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems hardly a win for the Australian public, to have to have a Singaporean telco, with a questionable track record in regards to building and running, build and run what will be the basis of one of the most important pieces of telecommunications infrastructure that this country will build in the next 50 years.

Yeah great move Howard, selling off Telecom to Australian's [was the original idea for the sell off] so that it can be run by greedy bastards like Sol, who try to squeeze every cent out of you the customer while giving as little back as possible in regards to services.

Yeah this is real great for Australians.

Re:Hardly a Win

[Anonymous Coward]

It's grossly unfair to characterise the likely winner of this tender as a Singaporean telco. Optus is only one member of the bidding consortium, which also includes AAPT, Internode, iiNet, Macquarie Telecom, Powertel, Primus, Soul and TransACT, and I think all of the others, except AAPT are Australian businesses. And AAPT comes from Australia's seventh state.

-- Newall

Whole sale

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I know of the situation, it was a requirement that part of the proposal be the establishment of an independent wholesaler rather than one company owning the network. Telstra stated that they would not participate if they did not end up owning the wholesale rights to the network.

People are missing the point when they say that it will stop competition, by not letting Telstra build a second network they would be forced to buy wholesale connections to the NBN just like everyone else, breaking the monopoly that exists at the moment. Telstra have stated bluntly that they will never do this, hence Sol's statement that they would focus purely on Next-G in the event that it happens.

Re:Whole sale

[Whiteox]

they would focus purely on Next-G
Yes, and that is a true monopoly. Next-G is totally owned by Telstra and they are not allowing anyone else to use that technology.
To be clear on this, Next-G uses 800mhz bandwidth while all the other 3G providers use 1800+mhz. What this means is that the Next-G network travels further/kilowatt than higher frequencies, and no-one else can use it.
That really stinks if you don't live in the metro areas as you are forced to use Telstra if you want reliable coverage.
The worst decision Telstra made for their customers was to get rid of CDMA. I was paying 9c/minute and now I'm up to 45c/minute. Complaints about this everywhere.

Re:Whole sale

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore, how is limiting Telstra's right to build lines different to giving them sole control of a radio frequency?

Not affected by the global downturn?

[yidele]

No deficit? How's that working out, mate?

Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[Anonymous Coward]

not to mention the capital on aussies.

Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[Anonymous Coward]

"WTF is a seppo?"

Septic tank = yank = seppo.

Outside the square

[Nycran]

So why did Telstra not want to win this? It seems the perfect out. Submit a half baked proposal and omit an obvious required detail. It looks like they tried but actually they wanted to fail. Interesting. This might be a long term play at not having to service the whole of the country, which is unprofitable and expensive (Australia is a big desert, with dense population centers on the coast). Maybe Telstra predict better profit margins in delivering high speed data through the air, and are betting that in 10 years, data will be fast enough through the air to compete with any wired solutions. I think they want to be free from government regulations.

Re:Outside the square

[MichaelSmith]

So why did Telstra not want to win this? It seems the perfect out. Submit a half baked proposal and omit an obvious required detail. It looks like they tried but actually they wanted to fail. Interesting.

The loser gets to focus their workforce on profitable urban customers, while the winner sends their staff into the outback pulling cables through the desert to snare 150 homes.

They are being paid for it but it means taking people away from other tasks.

Re:Outside the square

[Nycran]

Hot damn I'm good. This just in: "Earlier yesterday, Telstra told the stock exchange that it would boost the speed of its Next G mobile broadband network to the point where it is faster than than the Government's proposed fibre-to-node network. It will also boost the speed on its Foxtel cables."

Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[Anonymous Coward]

no shit. do you actually talk like that, or did a straayan tell you that we call you that? did they tell you about drop bears too?

Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[deniable]

The correct term is Strine, thanks.

They said, Telstra...

[MrKaos]

You are Sol's

This is good news

[acb]

Telstra used to be the national government-run telephone monopoly. It's now semi-privatised, though maintains a lot of its monopoly over the network (in particular, the last mile). As a profit-making entity answerable to its shareholders, it has, of course, been squeezing that for all it's worth, at the Australian consumer's expense. It's about time Telstra got smacked down.

Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[ignavus]

We haven't succeeded until we have replaced all stories about Thanksgiving and Fall, etc with proper stories about Anzac Day, Two-Up, Autumn, and football codes that don't involve wearing wussy helmets.

Forget the Alamo. Remember Gallipoli.

Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[Anonymous Coward]

football codes that don't involve wearing wussy helmets.

Australian football players don't wear wussy helmets because the game is so fucking pathetic it's not funny. It's wimpier than soccer. "oh i've got the ball and people are coming my way, better kick it high up in the air and run away screaming so that i don't get hurt".

Fucking poof sport that Australian aerial ping pong.

Just when I thought Sol couldn't top his antics

[agendi]

I remember thinking when I heard that Ziggy had left the Telstra camp "Man I'm glad Ziggy is out and Telstra can get on with sorting itself out, after all they couldn't hire anyone worse..." Boy was I wrong.

Re:Just when I thought Sol couldn't top his antics

[dbIII]

Ziggy is now in charge of everything nuclear in Australia. I think we need to deport him before he spills something, and hopefully find some way to deport his Mexican bandit successor while there is still something left of Telstra outside of Sol's pockets.

I know the USA still thinks of Australia as a place full of convicts but I wish you wouldn't send crims like Sol Trujillo and Robert D. McCallum.

Re:Just when I thought Sol couldn't top his antics

[Anonymous Coward]

Ziggy is now in charge of everything nuclear in Australia.

A fitting job for a nuclear physicist. How one of those could be the CEO of a telecommunications company is beyond me, but Ziggy was booted from the being the CEO of Optus by the board of directors for lack of competence.

Re:Just when I thought Sol couldn't top his antics

[veltyen]

Deport?

At least Ziggy is Strayan, and not a fucking yank.

Re:Just when I thought Sol couldn't top his antics

[dbIII]

Yes, but it's a fitting job for a competant nuclear physicist instead.

There was some weird political tie-in that got him the Telsta position, just like the contraversional historian on the Telstra board now who would have a lot of trouble getting an academic position anywhere. It really does seem to have been whoever has lunch in the right place at the right time.

Re:Just when I thought Sol couldn't top his antics

[dbIII]

You are right, his accent fooled me. Funny how Australians that spend a bit of time in the USA pick up the accent for a while. He picked up the Enron style CEO attitude too.

From the day he was chosen I could not understand Sol's appointment - you normally wouldn't choose somebody with a recent spectacular failure to run a large company.

Best Christmas present ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to go dance naked in the street.

Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking poof sport that Australian aerial ping pong
It's only played in a small region in the south somewhere except for 'demonstrations' or exhibitions. Based on some kind of old Irish football game I believe.

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kicked out of bidding, but not out of the network

[fdisk3hs]

Maybe they won't get to build it, but it will be totally entertwined with Telstra's existing network. Lots of last mile hops will be Telstra, and many of the backbone fibers will be leased from Telstra, or bought from them.

We did the same thing in Ohio, and AT&T wasn't allowed to build it, but we are totally intertwined with them anyway. We don't even peer with them, it's all layer 1 or 2 service.

It is indeed about the proposals.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very much to do with it, and absolutely is grounds for dismissing the tender as it does not comply with the tender's terms of reference. Anyone who has dealt with an Oz government tender process would relate to this. I assume things are done similarly overseas.. Of course when you p**s the government off by not playing by the rules that becomes a very convenient excuse. Not smart Telstra.

Re:Thanks for another Australian story timothy!

[Xaria]

There's also a huge following of Rugby in Australia, and there's nothing wussy about that!

He's the Ass Sol!

[pelrun]

And of course, the Chaser's analysis is still spot on.