From
http://news.smh.com.au/business/telstra-best-for-highspeed-broadband-20080623-2v
dk.html

Telstra is the best prepared telecommunications operator to build and
operate a national high-speed broadband network, one of its top executives
said Monday.

Telstra group managing director of public policy and communications Phil
Burgess said the telecoms giant expects to submit its bid for the mammoth
undertaking by July 25.

The network will offer high speed broadband to 98 per cent of the Australian
population and will see 4,000 technicians physically roll-out optic fibre
across the country.

Macquarie Capital Advisers previously planned to lead a consortium to
roll-out and operate the network but bowed out on Friday, and is now acting
as financial advisers to Telstra.

Telstra's competitor is a consortium led by Singapore Telecommunications
Ltd-owned Optus called Terria.

The federal government has promised to provide up to $4.7 billion in funding
to help build the network, estimated to cost between $10 billion and $12
billion.

"It's a huge task and we think we're the best prepared to do it," Dr Burgess
told ABC Radio.

He said the federal government had been dithering over the rollout for too
long, with Telstra's previous proposal in August 2005 was turned down for no
good reason.

"We were never given a reason - they just stopped talking about it."

Dr Burgess rejected claims the federal government knocked back the original
proposal because it would not allow other telecommunications firms to use
the network and did not provide for sufficient regional coverage.

"We've always made open access proposals ... and there is no reason to
believe that will change with future proposals.

"That's just a furphy that some other people keep talking about.

"We're willing to give access to everyone, so we're not saying its just for
us, although in the US about two weeks ago the courts decided that broadband
roll-outs and next generation networks should not have to be shared," he
told AAP after speaking at a conference in Perth.

"The point where we couldn't reach agreement was on price: they wanted us to
sell below cost and we're not going to sell below cost.

"We have a fiduciary duty to shareholders. It's their money we're
investing - its not the government's money."

Dr Burgess also said the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission was
"out of touch with how investment are made" and needed to back off
"micro-managing" the broadband network roll-out.

"The ACCC wants to have its hands in everything in this country, whether its
a railroad in the Pilbara or a broadband network," he said.

"One thing counts to get innovation - investment - and the ACCC discourages
investment."

He told AAP the ACCC "insists on micro-managing when, where, the cost and
all of those sorts of things".

"The cost has to be reasonable but people who make the investment should be
able to make a commercial return.

"Infrastructure is hard.

"Let's just get on with the building.

"Nero fiddled while Rome burned and it didn't help Nero or Rome.

"We need to get on with it as soon as possible ... and we shouldn't have
somebody telling us how to do things.

"If we do something wrong, they ought to stick it to us, but to try to
micro-manage a new technology is a game that can never have a happy ending
for the consumer."

He said consumers would see the difference between high-speed broadband and
always-on broadband.