ATT pulled the same crap and it was broken up, but the Hedgemony has allowed it to reform. The media conglomerates are heading down the same path to monopoly. This is why you need anti-trust laws, because without them you end up with monopolies, or corporations “that are too big to fail”. Failing is exactly what the “invisible hand” of the market is all about. When these huge companies are protected from risk, the market does not work.

Has Telstra Been Too Confident For Its Own Good?

Telstra’s high handed approach to its relationship with Canberra looks to have blown up in its face, with the national carrier yesterday being ruled out of further bidding in the National Broadband Network (NBN) scheme. The news saw shares drop to their lowest point since listing in November 1997 with at least three of Australia’s big brokerage houses dropping their rating on the company.

fnarena.com – 16 Dec 2008

$12bn wiped from Telstra shares

Telstra has lost $12 billion in market value in the past two days, after being excluded from the national broadband network bid.

The Australian – 16 Dec 2008

Telstra has only itself to blame on broadband

Telstra’s exclusion from the competitive process established by the Federal Government to build a national broadband network is another example of how Sol Trujillo and his team have consistently misread two governments.

SMH – 16 Dec 2008

Telstra workers on strike

Telstra phone lines across the nation – along with ATMs, EFTPOS machines and internet connections – will be at risk today as thousands of fed-up staff continue their strike, unions say.

The Age – 16 Dec 2008

LOL Nobody likes Telstra! From the Fed Gov, to the employees, to the customers! 😀

I think i’m starting to love our new Gov. 😉

Die Telstra… DIE!!!

If we could get a couple more satellites up, I would switch to a satellite system. Currently they have over sold their capacity, so through put suffers. The latency makes satellite a problem for gamers and VOIP connections, but it would be fine for me.

The names change, but the game is the same – monopoly.

And you are right about the myth! It’s the same here… We supposedly have a hundred ISP’s to choose from, including a half dozen or so major *carriers*. But the reality is, and everyone knows, there is only Telstra. They own all the infrastructure including the exchanges. All others (even the biggies like Primus, Optus etc) all have to wholesale off Tesltra. and Telstra LOVE to play stupid games! They are regularly fined millions for some shenanigans by the ACCC, and just shrug and raise prices or cut services. The really insane thing si, my ISP (who is very good BTW) wholesales off Optus, who wholesale off Tesltra. But my ISP get’s a much better deal off Optus than wholesaling directly off Tesltra! How does that add up? Optus is a huge company with a lot of overheads, and they constantly post big profits. And they also complain that Telstra isn’t giving them a fair deal on wholesale (in fact, Telsta was fined a couple years ago for that). *shrug* I dunno! Optus have rolled out their own cable network for Internet & TV, but the coverage is limited to the major cities and isn’t that cheap anyway, and they still have to go through Telsta owned national gateways. 🙂

What pisses me off is that we still have to pay a monthly phone line rental to Telstra no matter who we use even though most of that infrastructure has been in place almost a century and was paid for a hundred times by now! Though, most large resellers can get a better deal. Telstra charge $30/Mth, my ISP charges $28/Mth. At least we don’t have timed local calls… yet! Telstra has been fighting for that for years, they almost got it under Howard (which I believe is one reason Howard was finally torpedoed! Enlightened self-interest is a wonderful motivator at times).

The crooks are definitely running things. As far as I am concerned, the criminal extortionists have simple found a way of legalizing extortion and fraud by becoming Corp Execs.

Bell South does the same thing in non-cable areas, jacking the price because they can.

– Badtux the Composting Penguin