Thursday, December 20, 2007

Telstra calls the kettle black

Sounds like some real psychological projection going on in the news report below. Telstra is accusing Optus of being reluctant to connect its cable to large dwellings. I had a HUGE battle to get Telstra to connect its cable to my place. I actually had to write to the Prime Minister before they would do it! Even though their cable was only a couple of yards from my front door! Hard to believe, really.

Telstra and Optus are two very lazy oligopolists and that is all there is to it. It is a definite case of the pot calling the kettle African-American!
Telstra has taken a swipe at its competitor Optus, accusing it of getting a cheap ride on its network instead of investing in its own. The claim comes a day after Optus announced it had upgraded its cable network to 20 megabits per second, and ahead of an anticipated ruling on the price Telstra can charge for access to its copper network - known as unconditioned local loop (ULL).

A spokeswoman from Optus denied the claim, suggesting Telstra is attempting to distract the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) regarding its ULL decision.

Telstra has lodged a request with the ACCC to exempt it from offering Optus access to its ULL network where Optus already has cable. It claims that despite Optus' cable network passing 2.2 million homes, it continues to rely on Telstra's, particularly in multi-dwelling apartments.

"SingTel Optus claims that only 1.4 million homes within its cable footprint are serviceable, which is code meaning they don't want to make the investment to connect nearly 40 per cent of homes that have cable running past their front door," Telstra executive director regulatory, Dr Tony Warren, said. "By comparison, overseas cable networks treat less than eight per cent of their homes passed as unserviceable."

Source

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Telstra and Optus have to be the two most reviled companies in this country.

I have had to move from the country back to the city because Telstra spent one whole entire year telling us we could not have broadband for ELEVEN different reasons, whereas our neighbours and everyone around us were connected.

It was impossible to run a business in the country entirely due to Telstra's monopoly...correct me if I'm wrong but aren't monopolies illegal?

Then Optus attempted to refuse to keep its insurance contract on our mobile phones trying to send us inferior phones and absolutely refusing to phone us when they said they would.

Again business suffers because communications are all but dead!

What a farce communications are and what a huge stranglehold Telstra has on the industry. It is slowing the industry down to a standstill.

Oh for someone with vision and less greed!