Sydney, notwithstanding Alan’s flak. Another day another row emerges and, guess what, (Rudd’s favourite saying) Telstra draws the short straw over the NBN muddle created by the man of straw.

Before gaining the go ahead for the FTTH NBN he has, again, put the cart before the horse by legislating that new homes must be readied for FTTH with effect from July 1 2010. This interim period has created a storm with Telstra accused by Industry ‘executives’ of holding housing projects to Ransom. And housing experts frustrated with the government as to whether NBN would be available to take advantage of the connections. The imposition of costs amounting to $520 million a year is a real burden on housing projects so the frustration is quite understandable.

When one considers that each nook and cranny on this vast continent will need to be made ‘fibre-ready’ in particular the millions of spaces between nodes and homes, makes on shudder by the mere thought of the disruption for eight long years. Even with Telstra capitulating, it’s a recipe for disaster.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Telstra for the cooperation and flexible service they gave us.
On Sunday 21st of march we developed a technical fault with my dads phone,dad being the age of 95 needed the phone back in service soon as possible. I phoned Telstra control center which was in the Philippines, however the service i found was overwhelming and out outstanding. From there they told me the fault would be rectified between 1.00pm and 5.00pm, On both a professional and a personal level, the fault was fixed by 4.00pm. Once again thanks to Telstra for a top job.

Congratulations Telstra for your superb service extended to the Edyveans. I know for a fact that Telstra treat Senior citizens with utmost care.

Maybe time for Telstra to shake a leg with those NBN negotiations..? Conroy seems convinced they have a Business Case to build the NBN without Telstra..

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/conroy-to-show-his-hand-on-national-broadband-network/story-e6frg8zx-1225844965288

['Conroy to show his hand on national broadband network']

['COMMUNICATIONS Minister Stephen Conroy has finally agreed to release an implementation study on the national broadband network, and claims the 500-page report will back his claim the federal government can build the multi-billion-dollar project without Telstra.']

['Senator Conroy yesterday responded to political pressure from opposition and Greens senators by announcing he would make the entire study by McKinsey and KPMG public before the federal budget in May.']

['"No question, and I've said this many many times, that it would be faster to build and cheaper to build if there is an agreement with Telstra. (But) I think when you see the business case in the lead advisers' report (in the study) a lot of the commentary which has been wildly inaccurate -- and I mean wildly inaccurate -- will be put to bed."']

Paul, in the final analysis saying it can be done, does not mean it will be done. And certainly, it will need more than pen pushers, bean counters and salesmen.

The NBN was conceived on a flight, back of an envelope and a wish list.

Perhaps Conroy should join Abbott on the 10 day charity bike ride from Melbourne to Sydney and see how he fells about it.

I reiterate: “When one considers that each nook and cranny on this vast continent will need to be made ‘fibre-ready’ in particular the millions of spaces between nodes and homes, makes one shudder by the mere thought of the disruption for eight long years. Even with Telstra capitulating, it’s a recipe for disaster.”

Well Vasso,
NBN Co. can “absolutely” build the network without Telstra. eh!

Music to my ears.. Don’t tell me you are still betting on your Share Portfolio.. The rule is, don’t put all you money in one basket, and only invest money in Share Portfolios, “That you can afford to lose”.
Its not too late for Telstra to jump on board the NBN, but don’t leave it too long , or it will leave without them.
And i still firmly believe the NBN is the Best thing for Telstra and Shareholders in the long run.. To do anything else is sheer folly..

Following on from your suggestion of Telstra “shaking a leg”, Mr. Grenfell (as I have also been saying) here’s more evidence that the NBN is planning to go on, with or “without” Telstra.

Seems there are plenty of takers too, who will jump in if Telstra don’t! Even those not historically Telstra opponents and not in communications per se`!

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/170305,energy-australia-explores-network-tie-up-with-nbn-co.aspx

So antagonistic Sol type decisions, as just made and outlined below, in regards to greenfields developments, isn’t helping…

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/telstra-blocks-sale-of-houses-20100321-qo6i.html

lots of people i talk to want telstra’s wireless network to be quicker because of all the new customers sighting on to wireless it is getting slower and lots more outages happening isn’t time to improve the wireless network to match speed of asdl2 to keep customers happy and not changing to other providers.

Vasso many thanks for the news of Senator Fielding’s meeting in Melbourne next week. I have called the Senators Office and have been told that if the meeting goes well Senator Fielding may look to hold similar Meetings in other parts of Australia. I hope to get to the Melbourne Meeting and would encourage other people interested in the blackmail of Telstra to do likewise.

Syd I have already been processed accordingly and the verdict?

Robbie is…

- An impartial Telstra customer, recent shareholder who understands and accepts why and how Telstra were able to get where they are today.

- One who accepts that Telstra have profited handsomely from the vested PSTN. BUT also accepts due to the monopoly nature of the PSTN (particularly the last mile) access to the PSTN for others was made law (they are NOT leeches) as part of Telstra’s PSTN ownership.

– One who speaks his mind but will never disgaracefully and unAustralian like, ditch his fellow Australians technological future, for his own greedy portfolio agenda.

- One who has openly bagged Telstra (Trujillo era) and praised (apart from the latest greenfields estate announcement) the Thodey Telstra.

- One who has also openly suggested and supported an agreement between the government and Telstra, to build a NBN, which will help all Australians and without all the volatility, give Telstra shares a platform to build and increase from.

- BUT ESPECIALLY, one who dislikes sycophantic, greedy humans who talk complete disproved nonsense, driven out of desperation for their underperfoming investment. These people in the comms sector, happen to all be, simply 4/5 TLS shareholders (no other company, for some strange reason), and they actually believe they have a “god given right” to “always profit handsomely”.

Syd you have been processed too and your findings?

- One who is the complete opposite to everything outlined above, easy.

The Telstra puppets/minions here, wonder why they are personally taken to task, in relation to their shareytales?

Just like 12 months ago at NWAT when I posted comments and was attacked by 4 share driven lunatics (which created the RS monster – bet they regret that now, lol…) Mr. Grenfell posted a comment above as offered to do so by Telstra, simply suggesting Telstra need to “shake a leg” and make a deal with NBN Co (as I have also been saying). I agree too Paul, sans volatility and a platform to constructively build from, TLS shares will increase, too!

But guess what? Along comes minion #1, with a snide nonsensical, portfolio driven response, revovling around disproved NWAT FUD, to Mr. Grenfell.

Vasso, seems you have helped Telstra [sic] YET AGAIN, with your stupid comments rallying more people against you and as a direct consequence, against Telstra.

Are you paid to do so by Telstra’s opponents?

Lol…

Paul, an appropriate addendum.

I concur with your view – “And i still firmly believe the NBN is the Best thing for Telstra and Shareholders in the long run.. To do anything else is sheer folly”…but there’s a decorum to follow, don’t just take my word for it. See:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/national-broadband-network-too-important-to-play-politics/story-e6frg9if-1225845532440

Vasso, you say your shares are of no consequence, but then prove otherwise by supporting Telstra 24/7, regardless.

Remember when Telstra admitted to willfully, illegally stopping competitors their legal right to access the PSTN? Most people were appauled to hear this. Your response on NWAT – “totally understandable under the circumstances”. OMG…

Vasso, you may truthfully believe that you look at these issues impartially, but as a TLS shareholder who depends upon these shares, you do not!

About 2000 Vasso comments later – which “always” laud Telstra and bag the others or anyone who dares even question Telstra, let alone bag them (refer to Paul Grenfell above) proves it!

As for your latest link (to a business article… A G A I N, yawn) – here’s my take from over at ZD…

RS – 26/3 – ” From outside the square… Wouldn’t it be interesting and quite a surprise (particularly for TLS supporters who bag him daily) if Conroy was not tabling the report, because he actually wants to do it the easy way and deal with Telstra… but the report recommends not to”!!! {END}.

So wouldn’t it Vasso…?

Oh PAUL (not Paul Grenfell) don’t make up minion like BS.

I didn’t say I’d buy into the NBN. What I said was, it would be prudent for Telstra to deal with the government’s NBN.

Please understand what people are saying, so you don’t do like the other minions her,e and make a complete fool of yourself.

http://www.commsday.com/node/799

NBN Co exec provides most detailed briefing yet on planned network design

NBN Co has given a strong hint that it is planning for life without access to Telstra’s mainland pit and pipe infrastructure and, instead, may leverage utility infrastructure, as is the case with its early Tasmania rollout.

Along with Justin Milnes Resignation, i would suggest Telstra is in a Bit of a Pickle, wouldnt you?

Where to start

I do not think that I care about the share price so much (I am A shareholder in Telstra) as this blog was created to improve customer services and give us an opportunity to express our views that would help improve products and services by Telstra.

There seems to be a lot of personal attacks here which are totally unnecessary and very counter productive . Now if we can just get past all these personal attacks and use our energies and time to be productive in our criticism or praise of Telstra and work together in making suggestions that would benefit Telstra in providing their array of services and pricing of these services then I would like to think that we would all end up winners the customer and the shareholder as we cannot separate them and success for one goes with the other.

As for the NBN I think that this government has totally got it wrong and there are a lot more areas that this money would be better spent such as health,roads etc. All we need to do is improve what we have now and that will be taken care of with improvements in technologies which will provide more than the required speed that 99.9% of people will be satisfied with.

I do not know what the rest of you here feel but I am more than satisfied with the services that are available at the moment and my beef has always been that Telstra should be more competitive with their services and prices and at least be as close to their competitors services and pricing as possible if anything they should be leading the way and be the leader not the one who is always two steps behind their competitors that is why they have lost so many customers and will continue to do so if they do not change their ways NOW.

As for the Labour Party or Liberals they should start to see what the people really want not what they think they want or need as they have a tendency to get it wrong most of the time. I am sick of paying so much direct and indirect taxes in this country and seeing how much of that money is wasted. If they spent the money wisely and not wasted the amount that they do waste there would be no need to fix the hospital system, the roads,etc as I believe that the taxes collected should be more than enough to provide all this and we should have some of the best standards in the world.

Problem is we have too many idiots in parliament who only seem to care about their own agendas not what is good for the majority of the people and the good of this great country.
Telstra is and should be a great Australian company that should be allowed to compete on its own footing and be able to provide real competition to all of their competitors and give real service to customers and competitive pricing with those services as obviously this all gets put back into the Australian economy through workers and dividends and services provided.

I could go on and on here but will leave it for another day hope we can get together here and provide real and constructive ideas that would benefit us all that being the customer and the shareholder alike.

Sydney, I have a prior engagement on 1st April (nothing to do with April fools day!) so will miss this important event which came out of the blue. If you do make it to Melbourne, give the senator my warmest regards and look very much to meet him at some other time.

In congratulating Senator Ludlam I intimated that ” The electorate are fast learning about the much needed power of the cross benches in the Senate.

We look forward to the forthcoming general elections, as never before.”

For anyone interested, I sent the following to Tony Abbott and the cross bench senators.

Dear ………..,

BigPond Video ( http://bigpondvideo.com/newstv ) to my rescue.

During the Tasmanian and South Australian State elections there was a decidedly lack in free-to-air broadcasting but BigPond Video saved the night.

The dust has yet to settle following the destructive Telstra wind of change, the Communications Minister is embarking on other harebrained reform plans which threaten to drag the telecommunications sector into the complex world of regulated content. Prompting The Australian Financial review’s Editorial on page 66 last Friday to write “So much for the national broadcaster. When South Australian Premier Mike Rann was interviewed last Saturday on the result of the state election, in most other states ABC1 was running Midsomer Murders and ABC2 was showing a rerun of a black-and-white movie. Taxpayers were forced to turn to Sky News for coverage…….. continued.

By contract, during the Health debate between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition at the Press Club, the ABC played center stage and the free-to-air channels dabbled with wormology and declared to Prime Minister Winner! Winner of what?. Which brings to mind a recent joke doing the rounds:

It’s a slow day in a dusty little Australian town. The sun is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

On this particular day a rich tourist from down south is driving through town, stops at the local motel and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one in which to spend the night.

He gives him keys to a few rooms and as soon as the man walks upstairs, the owner grabs the $100 bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmer’s Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his drinks bill at the local pub.

The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him “services” on credit.

The hooker rushes to the motel and pays off her room bill to the motel owner with the $100 .

The motel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the $100 bill, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything.

However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Australian Government is conducting business today..

Kind Regards

Vasso Massonic

just as i thought i post my complaint and get no answer typical telstra all talk no action the blind leading the blind

Ben, unfortunately personal attacks are unavoidable when certain people who love to tell portfolio driven shareytales are involved.

Those who, when anyone comes here and does not shower hugs and kisses on Telstra, are accused of being disparaging opponents out for their own finanncial benefits or simply called village idiots, by two one-eyed Telstra minions.

The most hypocritical part of these claims are…

1) Both of these gentlemen are in fact TLS shareholders, who disparage anyone but Telstra and as TLS shareholders COMMENT EXCLUSIVELY FOR THEIR OWN FINANCIAL INTERESTS IN TELSTRA.

2) After having been supplied with URL links, articles etc (even from governments and High Courts) to trotally disprove their claims, the same two still keep repeating as factual, thjeir disproved propaganda. Propaganda invented by Telstra’s previous management… So speaking of “village idiots”!

As for you being happy with your comms, that’s lovely and half the problem. Because many Australians have sub-standard comms as they are on RIMS (which give them dial up speeds only) or no choice but expensive wireless broadband.

This is why the government is building a NBN (NATIONAL broadband network) so that others who unlike you and I, who do not have… will have.

As for the government getting it totally wrong, well they were voted in, for amongst many other things of course, an election promise to build a NBN, so…

Sydney, you got me fired up mate.

Dear Senator Ludlam,

I thank you for your E-mail thanking me for forwarding some gathered information on the NBN/Telstra negotiations.

My prime concern is our telecommunications national interest. The value of our Telstra shares is of no consequence, the investment has always been underwater and in the normal course of such an event, investors would sell the shares, offset the loss against future gains and move on. But, with Telstra its a different kettle of fish. We simply cannot afford to have an other debacle with a $43 billion project which could decimate Telecommunications in Australia.

I was simply astounded to read the following article, Courtesy AAP:

Call for companies to work on NBN

From: AAP

March 29, 2010 2:05PM

“NBN Co has called for capability statements from design and construction services businesses to work on the fibre portion of the national broadband network.

The company has issued a Request for Capability Statement (RCS) to start the formal engagement process and expects to issue a formal request for proposals in June or July this year.

“The process will also encourage mid tier and smaller contractors that wish to register an interest and will ultimately help them offer their services to the head contractors,” NBN said in a statement.

NBN head of construction Patrick Flannigan said NBN Co wanted to hear from companies that had the proven capability to deliver large scale infrastructure projects in Australia.

Mr Flannigan said planned physical construction would involve a staged approach which would eventually pass more than ten million premises over eight years and require laying more than 200,000 kilometres of fibre cable.”

After spending millions on a feasibility study, which we are yet to see. The company will necessitate companies to spend more millions on expressions of interest. The job entails much more than “laying more than 200,000 kilometres of fibre cable.” Each nook and cranny on this vast continent will need to be made ‘fibre-ready’ in particular the millions of spaces between nodes and homes, makes one shudder by the mere thought of the cost and disruption for eight long years.

Assuming that this mission impossible is somehow achieved, what happens to the 30,000 loyal Telstra employees and the settlement of the potential compensation claims by the 9 million customers.

!!!!!!!

Kind Regards

Vasso Massonic

Dear Mr. Thodey,
I’m sure you have more important things to do so I will summarise my thoughts in the following: Telstra is having a very rough trot in the media in general and the ABC in particular. Could we please have some fair, impartial, informative reporting of the Telstra situation on Foxtel? PLEASE.

PS and make sure Helen Dalley is not involved, I’m sure she is one of the many Telstra Haters!

Here are a few words of wisdom:

http://www.eurekareport.com.au/iis/iis.nsf/pages/568CB81808429CC1CA2576F5001B11BE?OpenDocument

Have a lovely Easter break.

Vasso
You have started to show the true issues of the NBN. I add one more MAJOR ISSUE and that is HOW SECURE will it be!!!!

Will AUSTRALIANS be FORCED to use the NBN for ALL COMMUNICATIONS and the security problems that will come.

We MUST NOT HAVE EVERY SMALL or LARGE COMPANY jumping in and having a PART of it. The work from node to homesite will be a major issue like we have not seen the likes of before. The number of issues will be extreme. Who will pay the costs involved. IT WILL BE A BIG MESS.

We will not have the STANDARDS and the level of SERVICE will be VERY POOR.

We Need an improved TELSTRA to provide the TOTAL SERVICE as they have done for over 100years.
With the same security and standards that have been in use.
WE MUST NOT HAVE TELSTRA SPLIT UP to provide the NBN because IT WILL NOT WORK. TELSTRA have issues NOW because of sub contracting work. These issues MUST NOT ESCALATE.
Wake up AUSTRALIA and have ONE TELSTRA provide the total SERVICE.

Grahame, Murphy’s Law will have a ball with this one. And sadly, the army of 600-plus ISPs, built up by the ACCC over the years will be in for a rude shock

This bit is laughable.

“The process will also encourage mid tier and smaller contractors that wish to register an interest and will ultimately help them offer their services to the head contractors,” NBN said in a statement.”

Will NBN Co, seriously involve itself in such minute details on a $43 billion eight-year project. Has anyone ever read about Pareto’s principle?

Seriously though, here is my latest E-mail to Senator Ludlam.

Dear Senator Ludlam,

Further to my E-mail dated 29 March 2010.

I apologise for being a nuisance but the charade over the Government’s NBN is worsening to the extent that it is disruptive and clearly prevents Telstra from running its business efficiently. In this connection, I invite your attention to page 53 of The Australian Financial Review dated 29 March 2010.

The Telstra negotiating team is acting in good faith whilst NBN Co, secure by the threat of the pending draconian splitting legislation, appear to be on a fishing expedition to go it alone. In an earlier press report, NBN Co had called for capability statements from design and construction services businesses to work on the fibre portion of the national broadband network and laying more than 200,000 kilometres of fibre cable. In an other press report, see:

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/NBN-calls-for-partners-on-fibre-network-pd20100329-3Z6YH?OpenDocument&src=hp7

Senator Conroy is seeking partners to build the fibre segment of the national broadband network.

It seems our only hope to sort this glorious mess is the green party.

Kind Regards

Vasso Massonic