The products we all consume are a compromise between price, quality, function/service. Competition is good for the consumer. It enables a wider selection and variety of price points. Telstra is just another service provider.
A monopoly is likely to put the consumer second in value or in service or both? It is also likely to offer limited choices and does not need to respond to consumer demands.
Yes, as you have so well put elsewhere there is much wrong with today’s outcomes. There are other ways we might have progressed. Perhaps your observations are more about the future of the NBN and less about the Telstra of today?
There may be a significant argument to revisit the soon to be (next term of Federal Parliament) privitisation of the NBN. It could be split to bring the national interconnected network to every exchange and tower to one national entity. A similar strategy to the national highway network. Direct costs to the nation. The alternative - Imagine the reaction if the national highway network was to be sold to a single private owner. Imagine every highway a toll road returning 8% on the purchase price after interest on the new owners purchase cost and daily maintenance. I would hope not? We appear to be on this path for the NBN!
Currently the privitisation of the NBN is not on the public radar of our politicians. It may be the poisoned chalice to be avoided by both sides leading into any election. I have omitted further comment on the future of the NBN and its services. The whole of any discussion on the future of the NBN and NBN Co is a topic deserving of separation from how well Telstra can deliver the consumer experience with 8,000 fewer employees.
It is far from desirable to see 8,000 jobs go from any industry. However the car industry, the mining down turn, The restructuring of the steel production industry (eg BHP) and who knows how many other businesses have seen far worse.
The die for Telstra has already been cast. As a share holder:
Telstra as I read it is doing no more than any other private enterprise needing to repositioning itself for the future. Telstra could not reasonably resume any role in managing a national network while simultaneously competing in the retail sphere. For it’s share holders including all those funds now in super it may be a very bleak outlook if Telstra sits on it’s hands and fades into receivership.
Look to the fate of TAA and Ansett and just how much better our current airline industry is. This has not been without pain. I have no desire to paying two weeks pay to fly Brisbane - Sydney return. And despite what rural centres say - the cost of flying to these now compared to 50 years ago is less costly in real terms. I have no desire to spend all day on a milk run to Mt Isa in a rattling DC3 or screaming F27.
I could feel responsible in that some how just like the butterfly flapping it’s wings on the other side of the globe, my decision to move from Telstra dial up to a Telstra CDMA data card started something bigger! If only I had kept that telex machine all would still be well.
I share no guilt here as I too remember the past.
Was that the Telstra that brought us analogue mobile phones? And then shut it down.
Was that the Telstra that brought us CDMA? And then shut it down.
Was that the Telstra that pretended there was no 3G and brought us NextG? And then told us to buy a Telstra branded NextG phone.
What next for 3G now that 4G is here and 5G around the corner?
True, it is hard to blame the PMG for such confusion. They seemed to transition well from bicycles and telegrams to the Honda Postie bike and Bedford van. Perhaps a stretch too far back. Bureaucratic inertia was not such an issue when stamps were 2d.
The transition to Telstra simply gave the same system an unlimited license to spend. Hence:
Telstra committed to CDMA then left us all hanging. So out went my CDMA PCMIA card and in went the NextG/3G PCMIA card and oh no, now I needed a USB dongle for Next G. Yes I had great service. Unlimited data for 20hrs a month at up to 21 Mb/s. Except it only ever worked at the old CDMA speeds or even less downloading email. All because if you were not in Sydney the local tower had to connect over copper or limited microwave links all with dial up speeds back to the email server at the other side of Australia.
The past appears no more sensible than the present.
I still rejoice as I can now get 4G and speed test at 20-40Mb/s in less than an ideal location. I can even get Telstra to download my email at 100 times the speed of dial up nearly any where I go for a fraction of what I paid 10 years prior.
The Telstra of old gave neither service nor low cost. That is unless you could see the harbour bridge from your office window? Perhaps even as far as Point Piper and Manly, but never as far as where I lived until Optus and Vodafone took up the cause.
As some one with a financial interest through Super in Telstra should I ask for it to be given back a monopoly? To charge as it needs to pay a high dividend while delivering an incomplete and expensive solution? Or should Telstra take a different path, sell off it’s retail network and buy the NBN? To charge as it needs to pay back it’s borrowings plus 8% after interest and taxes and operating costs?