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News

  • Abbott acknowledges support for NBN in Tasmania

    Opposition leader Tony Abbott has given one of the strongest suggestions to date that the Coalition will not roll back fibre deployed by the NBN Co should it be elected to power at the next election.

  • Telstra management shake-up sees 950 jobs culled

    950 executive and middle management roles are set to be cut at several of Telstra’s capital city offices over the coming months as the incumbent telco attempts to simplify business structures in what it has labelled ‘Project New’.
    The first step of the $290 million business project will see Telstra restructured around the same local management model employed at Telstra Country Wide in June, which at the time saw 46 redundancies. Under the new model, 950 middle management roles will be replaced by 33 local managers responsible for 5,000 shops and dealers owned and operated by the company. Telstra Country Wide will be folded into the wider retail network.
    In an attempt to rebrand itself as a “sales and marketing company” instead of the peak engineering telco enforced by former chief executive, Sol Trujillo, Telstra will consolidate product innovation and management under the Chief Marketing Office, to be overseen by current chief technical officer, Hugh Bradlow. Telstra Operations, on the other hand, will take care of product delivery.
    “Change is always difficult, even where it is made in a way which is focused on improving service to our customers,” Telstra chief executive, David Thodey, said in a statement.
    According to Thodey, the telco hopes the consolidation of duplicate roles will “clarify job accountabilities, eliminate unnecessary steps in company processes, and substantially simplify decision-making”.
    Those affected by the management shake-up will be provided with redundancy entitlements of up to 80 weeks pay depending on their length of service.
    Assistant secretary to the Victorian branch of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU), John Ellery, told Computerworld Australia that the union - which represents the majority of Telstra employees - had not been warned of the job cuts.
    The latest job cuts follow threats from the company to axe 900 jobs in May, resulting in a staff strike at the time. The telco ultimately axed 345 middle management positions in a separate round to this week's announcement.
    However, Thodey flagged more jobs were to go at the telco’s recent Investor Day.
    “[Project New] is about simplifying the business, and we are going to restructure every part of this business as we go forward,” he said at the time.
    Telstra has denied reports a total of 6000 jobs are likely be made redundant over the course of the next three years, but has so far remained uncertain as to exactly how many will go.
    “The roll-out of Project New will result in an increasing in redundancy expenditure as we start to simplify the business.”
    The project will ultimately involve 500 employees to implement 27 programs with an aim to reduce spending on third parties, improve online customer service, improve the productivity of its field workforce, simplify its prices and cut costs, according to Thodey.

  • Telstra teams with Ericsson for LTE broadband trial

    Telstra is to shortly begin trials of Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, including offerings from Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson, as it seeks to test the feasibility and technical capability of LTE as a way to deliver the next generation of mobile broadband to its customers.

  • Telstra split talks continue

    Debate over the carve-up of Telstra continues after the Federal Opposition failed in a last-ditch bid to torpedo the legislation.

  • Aussie Telcos still waiting on Apple for iPad details

    Despite the impending local release of the WiFi iPad this month, and the 3G equipped version in April, Australia’s two biggest telcos are seemingly no closer to striking a deal with Apple to carry the new device.

  • Deal on Telstra split months off: Thodey

    Telstra has announced its financial results for the first half of the 2009/10 financial year recording unadjusted declines across revenue, EBITDA and profits after tax and revealing serious underlying problems at the telco.

  • Telstra separation announced on Thursday?

    The eerie quiet that has descended over the once very public stoush between the Australian Federal Government and Telstra could be the clearest indication yet that a deal on the separation of the telco is close at hand.

  • Conroy: Minchin's manipulations will hurt consumers

    Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy has condemned his former opposite number, Senator Nick Minchin, for forcing the Telstra separation bill to be delayed until February next year, saying consumers will be worse off as a result.

  • Australian minister mistakenly reveals Telstra report

    Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has accidentally released a confidential report containing potentially damaging and embarrassing details about Telstra.
    Analysts say the leak could put Telstra on the back foot in negotiations around the upcoming A$43 billion National Broadband Network.
    And in a further gaffe, the most sensitive information in the 252-page document is highlighted in yellow. This was presumably to make it easier to censor the information but instead has allowed Telstra's competitors and detractors to skip to the juiciest details.
    Furthermore, many of the pages in the leaked report are labelled "confidential" and are meant only for individuals with "National Broadband Network probity clearance".
    "How on earth can Australian taxpayers trust this bloke to deliver a A$43 billion National Broadband Network?" Opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin said.
    "This information goes to the heart of confidential negotiations and Senator Conroy has released terms of those negotiations in the public arena further jeopardising this entire process."
    A spokesman for Senator Conroy said the commercially sensitive information was "tabled by mistake and the Government regrets the error".
    The report, written by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and dated January 2009, is an assessment of proposals for building the next-generation broadband network.
    It contains highly detailed information about the value of Telstra's existing copper network assets (between A$8 billion and A$33 billion), extensive financial details including its cost of capital, network access prices and an analysis of funding uneconomic services in the bush.
    Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde said this information was critical to negotiations between Telstra and the Government over how large a share — if any — Telstra should have in the NBN and the amount of assets it needs to hand over to obtain that share.
    "This should not have happened. The Government should have been far more careful. It has breached trust and that's not a good thing," Budde said.
    "It could indirectly damage Telstra in its negotiating position ... it allows competitors to meddle in the whole discussion by commenting on this report and in that way undermining Telstra's position."
    But Budde noted that some of the confidential information revealed in the report was already known to industry figures, although not in such detail.
    Detailed appendix information about providing broadband services to commercially unviable areas would allow critics to test Telstra's public claims with the reality.
    "That particular appendix would give ammunition to people who have been arguing that there will be other ways to skin the cat if you don't leave it up to Telstra and give it to other players in the market," Budde said.
    Other appendixes in the report, such as one examining whether Telstra should be structurally separated to improve competition, could be used "to suss out how genuine Telstra is in its approach", Budde said.
    "Telstra was saying you don't have to structurally separate us to get the outcome you want, so this document could be used to say Telstra is right or wrong," he said.
    But if Telstra is upset about the Government's mistake, it is not showing it publicly. The telco refused to comment on the matter.

  • Questions abound over Telecom's fibre role

    In Australia, the government is doing everything in its power to force Telstra to participate in its National Broadband Network (NBN) programme. By contrast, in New Zealand, the government appears almost indifferent to Telecom’s participation in its fibre-to-the-premises proposal.

  • Telecom welcomes Telstra split

    The Australian government is pressuring Telstra into splitting into two separate businesses, leap-frogging New Zealand's May 2006 reforms of Telecom with its own more draconian approach to regulation.

  • No cap for Telstra's Thodey

    Newly-appointed Telstra chief executive David Thodey, a New Zealander, will have to work harder than his predecessor for his money, according to the contract the company made public today.

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