The most important thing for competition is the Declaration of Wholesale ADSL, which has been hugely, hugely overdue. That has arguably only happened now because of its make or break role in getting the Telstra Structural Separation Undertaking through, despite it having been a key and damaging issue for literally years. The SSU in turn [...]

If the Federal Government is to be taken at face value, yesterday’s acceptance by the ACCC of Telstra’s “structural separation” undertaking was the greatest moment in Australian telecommunications for twenty years. “The holy grail” of telecommunications microeconomic reform, boasted communications minister Stephen Conroy. The “beginning of genuine competition”, added prime minister Julia Gillard. Wait a [...]

Three years after Kevin Rudd announced the NBN Mark 2 policy, the last building block appears to be in place. After several iterations, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has accepted Telstra’s Structural Separation Undertaking, a condition precedent to the finalisation of the $11 billion post tax deal under which Telstra decommissions its urban and [...]

NewSat has broken its silence on whether its planned Ka-band Jabiru satellites could provide adequate capacity to service NBN Co’s needs. Not only could the company provide it, but it could do so at a fraction of the cost that NBN Co is currently set to pay, according to NewSat CEO and founder Adrian Ballintine. [...]

Stephen Conroy’s greatest success in telecommunications, measured by his own pre-2007 election statements and aspirations, came not in April 2009—when he announced his $43b NBN Mark 2 policy—but the previous year in February 2008—paradoxically as a result of doing nothing! That was the month when Telstra requested and received a letter from Conroy’s office which [...]

Such is the lot of Australia’s fickle investors that Telstra’s share price fell yesterday even as it reported a most extraordinary result. Telstra added 958,000 mobile services in just 6 months— basically a new customer every 20 seconds. This is surely some kind of record. Firstly, it is an indication of just how prescient former [...]