Telstra down but not out

Although you might still not encourage your mother to buy their shares, Telstra is down but not out.

A Labor win at the election could see Telstra hopeful for an agreement on the NBN. But according to CEO David Thodey:
It is a purely commercial issue and if we can get to an outcome we'd be delighted, if we can't we can't and life will go on.
On the other hand, an Opposition victory (which Tony Abbott appears to have personally hijacked) might prevent any plans to split Telstra's wholesale and retail operations.

But how does this really affect Telstra, and not just its legacy network?

David Thodey suggests that Telstra's wireless customer base is doubling every nine months:

 Telstra CEO David Thodey: Let me say it again, every nine months. Any of you out there would die to have a business like that.

And with Telstra continuing to improve the capabilities of its wireless infrastructure, once the fallout from the Three Amigos and the NBN negotiations has cleared, it seems plausible that Telstra will come out of it all just fine.

Either way, the NBN debate is giving Telstra enough breathing space to reposition its business. Ticky Fullerton's report on ABC's Lateline recently is worth a watch as it identifies some of the major issues for the election. No mention of how backward Australia is at the moment or how it will screw-up our future capabilities, though!

But in the meantime, speculation over the retail  price of the NBN services in Tasmania has prices ranging from $40-$90 per month - even some suggesting it is "too expensive". Given that I currently pay $109 per month to get quasi-reliable Wimax in Palmerston via Gungahlin (I gave up on the ADSL "service" just recently), if any Taswegians out there would like to swap, let me know via the post as my email may not be working...


Photo credits: Telstra sign: "Bidgee"/CC BY 3.0; David Thodey: Telstra.