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back to article Telstra plans to keep hands on government BEEELIONS

Telstra has assured shareholders that having gotten one hand on an $11 billion (net present value) payment from the government, the cash will have to be pried from its cold, dead fingers. Since it was Telstra chair Catherine Livingstone who was speaking, and she was speaking to shareholders at the carrier's annual general …

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  1. Bill Posters

    Just wait...

    Whatever time Turnbull thinks he can save by doing FTTN and whatever cash he thinks he can save will be lost in 'robust free and frank discussions' with Telstra.

    SO most likely we'll end up with a more fragmented service, costing more and later than otherwise. (If it doesn't actually cost more up front, it will in the future, either directly out of our pockets or as the copper replacement programme is run.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ugh, now The Register is doing it.

    "The three-way agreement between NBN Co, Canberra and Telstra..."

    I had nothing to do with this.

    Signed

    An angry Canberran

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    1. Gray Ham Bronze badge
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      Re: Ugh, now The Register is doing it.

      @ac 00:41

      Well, since the NBN co is a Commonwealth-owned business enterprise and Telstra is incorporated in the ACT, you could say it's an agreement between Canberra, Canberra, and Canberra.

      Come on, it's spring ... just relax, take a drive out to the Cotter one morning and think of all those Sydneysiders stuck in traffic!

      signed,

      A much less angry Canberran.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Ugh, now The Register is doing it.

        "...you could say it's an agreement between Canberra, Canberra, and Canberra."

        That cheered me up!

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      2. Big-nosed Pengie
        Reply Icon

        Re: Ugh, now The Register is doing it.

        And another.

        Time to nationalise the bastards.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Ugh, now The Register is doing it.

          I agree, and bring the post office back too. Key infrastructure should never be under private control as the for profit motives will preclude keeping the national interest in mind. Share holders > public for traded companies, expect them to "maximize shareholder value" aka screw the public every way they can.

          As the current cluster... that is the NBN rollout and pricing shows, these incumbents will never have the nations best interests in mind, only profits.

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  3. BlackKnight(markb)

    I only hope that the deal is too expensive to renegotiate, forcing the FTTP rollout to continue. despite the crowdfunding the only way turnbull will back down is if telstra hold them by the nuts over copper rental and make them buy out of the existing contract.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      You lack sufficient cynicism young commentard

      more likely Tel$tra get the money, the public gets Turnbulls low vision infrastructure so we have the worst of all possible worlds. You know the Oz bureaucrats and polliticians_always_ roll over to the big end of town or to those with a compulsion to kowtow to overseas pressure groups. Market forces you know. I wonder what exactly is being sold though. Is the devil a boot maker ?

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      1. Goat Jam
        Reply Icon

        Re: You lack sufficient cynicism young commentard

        "the public gets Turnbulls low vision infrastructure"

        The "public" can get FTTP under the coalitions plan if that is what they want. It has always been an available option that you can pay for if you require it.

        The budding socialists who produce variations of this retarded "low vision" comment ad nauseum are just cranky that under the Liberals plan the many people who don't want or need FTTP will not be forced into a socialist cross-subsidy arrangement that forces everyone to pay for FTTP (via taxation) whether they want it or not and thereby making FTTP cheaper* for the relatively few people who do want it at the expense of the many.

        The bottom line is if you want FTTP then you pay for it and keep your filthy looting hands out of my pocket.

        * Cheaper in up front costs, it is actually more expensive overall but people don't notice that because the real cost is hidden behind NBN Co's accounting screen and out of sight, out of mind to the typical low information types who just want to get free stuff and don't care who pays for it, even if it is ultimately themselves which it almost always is. Eventually the NBN house of cards will collapse and people will be staggered at how much it has cost them once the government is forced to write their "investment" off and the numbers end up in the federal budget where they should have been from the start.

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        1. andro
          Reply Icon

          Re: You lack sufficient cynicism young commentard

          "The "public" can get FTTP under the coalitions plan if that is what they want. It has always been an available option that you can pay for if you require it."

          Can you produce a link to current documentation for this? I want fibre to the premisis, and considering what it will cost me in stamp duty to move house, I am prepared to put down the thousands and pay for it if I have to.

          I heard it was an option, then I read somewhere that it wasnt, and now I can not find current facts at all. If I can buy it, I will, and I dont know what happens next. Do they run fibre from the exchange to just my house? From the node? (I read that the FTTN architecture was not upgradeable and would need to be ripped up to swap to FTTP). Do they run a single house off a shared 30 connection GPON passive fibre card like the original FTTP plan (though it would have been blocks of 30 houses installed at one, withthe fibre pulled through the ducts in one hit), or do they install a dedicated link per household?

          http://nbnmyths.wordpress.com/why-not-fttn/

          This is not just a pro FTTP rant... I really do want straight answers on if I can pay now and what happens. I want to take that option. Anyone?

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        2. mathew42
          Reply Icon
          Holmes

          In April 2013, 47% of fibre connections were 12Mbps

          The draft NBNCo Corporate Plan (2013) has this statement

          "As at 30 April 2013, 26% of NBN Co’s FTTP End-Users were on the highest available wholesale speed tier (100/40 Mbps), whilst 47% were on the entry-level wholesale speed tier (12/1 Mbps). These compare with 18% and 49% respectively forecast for FY2013 in the 2012-15 Corporate Plan."

          As to cost, ARPU is forecast to rise dramatically from under $30/month to over $100/month.

          Fibre on demand is not that expensive when you compare it with Labor's 1Gbps plans - $150/month just in AVC to which you need to add CVC and RSP costs & margins. Compare that with the estimated $3000 for fibre on demand and it is clear why Labor predicted that less than 5% of fibre connections would be 1Gbps in 2028.

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  4. Roger Jenkins

    Pits and ducts

    The article did fail to mention that the amount agreed to also included the rental of the pits and ducts to run fibre through, I think it may also include an amount for remediation of said pits and ducts too, which, by the way, Telstra has been very slack doing.

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  5. Robert Heffernan
    Mushroom

    Mandatory FTTP Needed!

    The issue is being seen from the perspective of cost and not so much for what, ultimately, is better for the country as a whole.

    The NBN is one of the largest national infrastructure projects ever undertaken, and is absolutely needed going forward because of one major issue. "Maximizing Shareholder Value".

    Telstra own the overwhelming bulk of the cabling connecting households to the communications network, and this puts them in a position of being able to rape the customers wallet each month and return almost nothing to the community (The community are not shareholders, therefore: fuck you community) in the way of jobs (moving overseas) or maintenance to the network (Sorry sir, even though I heard noise in your line, I can't locate the fault with my testing equipment, so fuck you, live with it)

    The NBN is all about replacing the aging copper network with a newer, more modern and easier and cheaper to maintain (going forward even though it's a lot of money and work to install) network that will service the country for a long time.

    The problem with the politicians are they are generally useless, I can't even think of one who is really worth the money and I would be happy if they all just vanished. They are just attention whores and don't think they are doing their job if they agree with each other, let alone look at the big picture over a greater time period than the next election. Corporate executives are just as bad only they resort to back room dirty deals so they "Maximize Shareholder Value" making the rich people richer and themselves BILLIONS in bonuses.

    The NBN's FTTP plan is what is needed to maximize the value to the community as a whole, fuck what Canberra and Telstra want, they don't own Australia, Australians do.

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