Alan Parkington <patriot@iheartaustralia.com.au> wrote:
> From
> http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...-30538,00.html
> WHEN Communications Minister Stephen Conroy called Paul O'Sullivan late on Monday to set up a meeting the following
> afternoon, no alarm bells rang for the Optus chief.
Hardly surprising given that that arsehole Conroy had
said that the new govt would abide by the contract.
> The two had met regularly over the past year to talk about Australia's $24 billion telecommunications sector and its
> broadband future.
Just another of your pathetic little drug crazed pig ignorant fantasys.
> So O'Sullivan was stunned when Senator Conroy told him he was cancelling a $958 million government grant to the Optus
> and Elders consortium, Opel.
Hardly surprising given that that arsehole Conroy had
said that the new govt would abide by the contract.
> "I disagree fundamentally with his approach but at the end of the day we have to work together," O'Sullivan says. "The
> advice he acted on was poor."
> But in a lovely coincidence for Conroy it clears the decks for the
> real game: the planned national fibre-to-the-node network that Kevin Rudd wants to reach out to 98 per cent of the
> population.
Doesnt clear a single deck, fuckwit.
> Conroy's seven-member expert panel met for the first time on Monday last week in Melbourne. On Monday or Tuesday of
> next week, Conroy will release tender documents to start the race to win the right to build the network and pocket the
> government funding.
There is no 'race' fuckwit.
> O'Sullivan has played it down, but losing Opel was a major blow for Optus.
No it isnt.
> The network would have given it the chance for first time in its 16-year existence to offer network-based services
> outside the big cities.
Pig ignorant lie.
> It would also have helped to subsidise the $500 million extension of Optus's 3G mobile network, which provides popular
> mobile broadband services.
> Optus is also struggling under an unprecedented marketing assault by Telstra.
Pig ignorant lie.
> This is particularly and most worryingly true in its core business, mobiles, which contributes 70 per cent of its
> profits.
Its mobile offering leaves Telstra for dead, fuckwit.
> O'Sullivan says the company has not lost market share in the sector but the numbers belie his claims.
No they dont.
> JPMorgan analyst Laurent Horrut's summary of the 2007 mobile market finds that Telstra gained 1 per cent of total
> mobile revenue market share, including equipment, Optus lost 2 per cent, Vodafone was flat and Hutchison gained 1 per
> cent.
Just noise, fuckwit.
> "Optus clearly stands out over the 12 and 24 months with material market share loss," Horrut says.
Just noise, fuckwit.
> "In the past Optus was able to limit its margin decline, in this period Optus margins also contracted by 4 per cent to
> 32 per cent."
Pity about the margins on the NextG system, fuckwit.
> Still, despite what it sees as shoddy treatment at the hands of the department, Optus will still lead the G9 group of
> industry players and investment bank Investec.
And since telstra has already said that it aint interested in any consortium,
which is what the govt has said is the only thing it will accept...
> It's all part of an industrywide chess game on broadband
There is no chess game, fuckwit.
> that, until this week, included Opel.
Still does, fuckwit.
> The big dispute on Opel is whose database of regional premises was right: Optus's or the one used by the department.
> The two sides were in violent disagreement about whether Opel had proved it could cover the requisite number of homes
> in regional
> Australia with a combination of WiMAX and copper-based broadband.
No violence involved, fuckwit.
> It was a contract effectively, and bizarrely, given and taken away by the same federal government department.
With different political clowns involved, fuckwit.
> Optus and Elders are exploring their legal options, but broadly it's game-over and we now move on to the Rudd
> Government's single piece of communications policy: a $4.7 million taxpayer subsidy for a fibre-to-the-node network.
> "The department points to the contract and says that's the contract and they have to perform," Conroy said yesterday.
> What is emerging is a very strong whiff of bumbling -- unkind people may say incompetence -- by the department.
Just another of your pathetic little drug crazed pig ignorant fantasys.
> These concerns are not new. The previous minister, Helen Coonan, was deeply unhappy with the departmental competence
> but only managed to shift its head, Helen Williams, late in her tenure.
> Williams' replacement, Patricia Scott, is seen as an economic dry with little communications experience. The bigger
> problem, Canberra and industry insiders say, is the lack of commercial nous or deep competence in the department.
The dept is completely irrelevant.
> Conroy insisted it would not be the department but his seven-member
> expert panel that will scope and make recommendations on the tender.
> The minister was keen to push the department to one side yesterday
> and hang the blame for Opel squarely on its shoulders.
Great way to end up face down in the mud.
> "There is one member of the department on the panel; the department is providing secretarial services," Conroy says.
> "We have investment banker John Wylie, who does not need the department's advice on the weighted average capital cost
> or rates of return.
> "The department entirely was responsible for Opel.
No involvement by Optarse at all eh ? Yeah, right.
> That is not the case with this process."
> Conroy expects there to be a be "a number of bids" for the FTTN network.
Just like a little kid desperately whistling as it walks past the cemetary at night.
> Certainly, fresh expectations of high, near-monopoly returns on capital put into the market by Telstra in recent weeks
Telstra never ever said that the govts FTTN proposal will do that, fuckwit.
> will have encouraged the major independent infrastructure players such as Macquarie Bank and Babcock and Brown to have
> a fresh look at the project.
Just another of your pathetic little drug crazed pig ignorant fantasys.
> "We need a return north of 18 per cent because that is our average return on other investments," Telstra public policy
> chief Phil Burgess says recently.
Pity he lied. Most obviously with the NextG network.
> "You don't earn a low rate of return on a high-risk project."
Pity about the NextG network, liar.
And the adsl2+ rollout, liar.
> Conroy says he accepts the proposition that a telco had a "technology
> premium that is not present in a gas pipeline or electricity grid".
> He would not say what that premium was, but it is doubtful it is more than twice a regular 8 per cent, or so, utility
> return.
> "There is no doubt that plenty of people will be running a ruler over the project," one banker says yesterday.
Just another pig ignorant fuckwit that doesnt have a fucking clue.
> German telco Deutsche Telekom has signalled interest in operations and
> maintenance. Having missed out on the fibre component of Telstra's network, Swedish equipment maker Ericsson and its
> rival Nokia Siemens will be interested.
In supplying, not doing it, fuckwit.
> Leighton and Transfield will be directly and indirectly involved in at least one bid.
In supplying, not doing it, fuckwit.
> Telstra is expected to lean on any companies that supply it not to work with rival bidders.
Fat chance with something of that size.
> "We are confident that our process will be transparent," Conroy says.
Wota fucking wanker.
> The Government preference remained an equity stake rather than return on debt for the project, he says.
> Right now the process is still unclear, particularly concerning the network structure. Will the network be at arm's
> length or, if Telstra wins, simply another arm of the telecoms behemoth?
Corse it wont be that last, fuckwit.
> Will the Government cast the net very wide and not be too proscriptive?
They already have been, fuckwit.
> Will the G9 hang together? Will Telstra launch an immediate attack on the Government tender document?
If they do, that will get nowhere, as always.
> The situation has been further complicated by recent comments of the competition regulator, the Australian Competition
> and Consumer
> Commission. Chairman Graeme Samuel says: "There is no point in
> building a high-speed network and charging inflated prices."
Yep, because no one will bother to sign up, stupid.
> Citibank telecoms analysts Tim Smeallie and Phil Campbell noted this
> week that Samuel in theory had no real authority to dictate capital returns, but his comments were important because
> the ACCC would be advising the panel on pricing and competition issues of each bid.