From
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...99-664,00.html

TELSTRA wholesale chief Kate McKenzie has hit back at calls for the telco's
retail and network operations to be split saying it needs to maintain scale
to make big network investments.

Just back from overseas where she met with representatives from
international telcos including Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom and Telcom
Italia, Ms McKenzie said rivals, such as Optus, were distorting the
structural separation debate.

"The message I came back from overseas with was that they're all
consolidating, no one's separating," she told BusinessDaily.

"There's a good reason for that because that's what you need to do to have
the scale to make the kind of investments we're talking about in the next
generation networks."