Telstra fights for its broadband monopoly

And if you live in a marginal electorate where there is no competition for broadband you're going to be their target: Talk to the hand - Business - Business - smh.com.au.

The broader game plan is simple. Telstra will starve the country of broadband investment in order to pressure the Government into making concessions on regulation. "Their strategy is to hold back on investments until they believe they can get what they deem to be a fair return on their investment," says Merrill Lynch telecommunications analyst Patrick Russel. 

Last month the former government utility switched on its second-best version of broadband over copper-wire phone lines. But it limited the fastest speeds of up to 20 megabits a second to areas - mostly the capital cities and regional centres covering 46 per cent of the population - where it faces competition from rivals such as Optus and iiNet.

Despite protests from the Communications Minister, Helen Coonan, and the competition tsar, Graeme Samuel, Telstra has refused to offer speeds faster than eight megabits a second elsewhere until it gets a "definitive assurance" it will not be forced to give rivals access to the network at what it regards as too cheap a rate.

But Burgess, at 67 the same age as his nemesis the Prime Minister, is unrepentant. "We are going to increase the salience of this issue to the media, to our shareholders. Everyone needs to understand that the future of this country depends on high-speed broadband," he says.

Burgess says the surveys by Crosby/Textor and other polling services of shareholders' attitudes to regulation show broadband is a big issue in the electorate. Such findings suit the message from Burgess.

The use of Crosby/Textor will send shivers down the spine of Liberal strategists. As one Liberal MP puts it, the Prime Minister is known to "hang on every word" Mark Textor utters. Textor and business partner Lynton Crosby are renowned for their ability to "drill down at a localised level" to ascertain what issues are on voters' minds.

Interesting role for Crosby/Textor. The article doesn't make clear whether they are just doing polling or whether they are also helping Telstra to devise and implement a political campaign against the Government, particularly in marginal electorates.

Telstra under its imported leadership team (the worst of US business thinking from a decade ago?)  seems to be totally focused on shareholders at the expense of customers not to mention any broader idea of corporate social responsibility.

I wonder if they have considered the impact their self-serving campaing might have on voters who are customers but not shareholders which, after all, is a group that is far more numerous.

The Government's best response would be to shirtfront Burgess et al and nip this nonsense in the bud. It will be an interesting sidelight to the 2007 campaign.