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February 22, 2006
We are increasingly seeing signs of what a privatised Telstra would do, and it is what we expected. It goes for the money, dumps public services to cut costs, wants as little regulation as possible, it puts a commercially based view, is increasingly less responsive to political imperatives and engages in misleading spin to manage angry customers and politicians.
The latest sign is the leaked plan to reduce the number of public pay phones that are often used as emergency backup, and by those who cannot afford to use mobile phones. The public phone is still an important community service. Hence the strong political response.
Leahy
Telstra argues that it is not properly funded to carry out its public service obligations, and it wants the government or the industry to pay for the "universal service obligation" that requires it to adequately service country areas.
It's a political problem for the National's. The agrarian socialists bent over to sell Telstra without putting in place a strong regulator to ensure competition in the telecommunications market
We shouldn't expect anything else from Telstra, should we? Telstra's profit margins on mobile phones are lower than those on the old fixed lines, its profits are falling, and it failed to spend on capital investment in Australia.
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First they abolish analogue mobile phones to replace them with CDMA.
Now they say CDMA is outdated and will be replaced with 3G.
They've said nothing about whether this technology shift will improve quality or coverage.
So country people will now need to buy their third mobile phone, all just to keep pace with their provider.
And if they're too poor to buy another mobile, there's now no phone box for them to use.
Hooray for bureaucratic efficiency!