The Telstra Chainsaw Massacre: Burgess slashes NBN submissions

Telstra has released a scathing media statement ripping into the regulatory submissions made by its competitors to the federal government for the building of the National Broadband Network. The company has accused its opponents of harbouring an "agenda of Telstra-slashing, not nation-building".

Telstra's head of public policy, Phil Burgess, charged that "Telstra slashers" were using the NBN to advance a tired, anti-Telstra campaign instead of advancing regulatory reform that will promote investment, innovation, consumer choice and the digital economy.

Burgess accused Telstra's competitors of seeking government-mandated separation of the incumbent that would "weaken and undermine Australia's only integrated, nation-wide communications network just so the slashers can gain an advantage in specific markets where they compete".

He said they were using the NBN as a self-serving means to advantage themselves by using the Government to tear Telstra apart.

"Mobiles operators want to see Telstra's mobiles business broken up; ISPs want BigPond broken up; content providers want BigPond and FOXTEL broken up; telcos want to put an axe to the lot; and Acacia wants to shield its NBN from all competition, even from wireless. Google, of course, wants everything for free," he said.

Burgess said if its competitors get their way Telstra will be broken up into a dozen separate companies, likening the process to "watching a B-grade slasher movie but, in this film, the knives are out for millions of Telstra customers and shareholders".

He then went about a little slashing of his own, tearing through the Vodafone, Optus and Terria submissions, collectively dismissing them as "a joke".

"Of course Vodafone, one of the world's largest corporations and the world's third largest telco operator, wants to use government to cripple Telstra. Why wouldn't they? It sure beats competing for customers in the marketplace, where they are not winning."

He took a shot at SingTel Optus over its failed Optus/Opel wireless network bid for regional and rural Australia: "they are back at the trough again"; and accused the carrier of hypocrisy for arguing against separation of itself in its home country of Singapore while fighting for separation of Telstra in Australia.

While Telstra's competitors believe some degree of separation is needed to foster a truly competitive and equivalent access NBN, offering expert opinion on other nation's where separation has occurred, Telstra has always rebutted with its own array of experts indicating separation is unnecessary.

"No one in their right mind would go down the separation path, which lies somewhere between crazy and stupid," Burgess said.

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