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back to article Following flat financials, Telstra pins hopes on NBN renegotiation

Expect more layoffs at Telstra, happening faster: in response to the changes wrought by the National Broadband Network on its business, Australia's colossal carrier has decided to bring forward its cost-cutting programs by a year. The announcement, that Telstra's previously-announced productivity target of AU$1 billion would …

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  1. TReko

    A wireless future?

    I expect 4G and 5G wireless to become a feasible alternative to the NBN in the next two years.

    One can already get 100GB/month on 3/4G for around $100 from Optus resellers.

    Expect users migrating not to the slow and sometimes shaky NBN but to wireless.

    2 3 Reply
    1. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: A wireless future?

      Not sure why someone would downvote you: I'm presuming you're NOT saying it's a feasible alternative to the NBN due to its superiority, but because it may be the only viable alternative, when the only other choice is NBN's increasingly lazy default of dumping you on Skymuster if they can't otherwise be bothered.

      That said, Optus has a good deal if you can get it. For many of us country yokels it's Telstra's eye-wateringly expensive 4GX, at $150/month for 50(+30)GB/month. SMB tax write off, but still. When your NBN has been pushed out to dates unknown and then you find out they just cancelled the FW tower, your options are slim, with otherwise a piece of rotting copper in the ground.

      1 0 Reply
    2. mark 177
      Reply Icon

      Re: A wireless future?

      5G is not even standardised yet. It may be as much as a decade away.

      1 0 Reply
      1. ctr00001
        Reply Icon

        Re: A wireless future?

        Rubbish - the 5G "non-standalone" specs are pretty much done and will be finalized before year end. First commercial deployments of 5G will start from 2018.

        0 1 Reply
    3. aberglas
      Reply Icon

      Re: A wireless future?

      For most people without teenagers at home 100 meg would actually be enough.

      0 0 Reply
    4. Jon B
      Reply Icon

      Re: A wireless future?

      That is already the reality in NZ, even with our flashy FTTP infrastructure. The two big telcos really pushing fixed wireless for lower usage customers.

      1 0 Reply
  2. mathew42
    Unhappy

    Telstra deceived ACCC on cost of copper network maintenance

    In a world where network infrastructure is often painted as worthless compared to the bits that traverse the infrastructure, the “re-nationalisation” of network under the National Broadband Network is going to be a burden on Telstra's profitability.

    Contrast this statement with Telstra's repeated claims to the ACCC that maintaining the copper network was significantly more costly than the ACCC's estimates. According to the ACCC NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report, Telstra have close to a 50% share of NBN Connections, so they are still the dominent player.

    Labor missed the opportunity to structurally separate Telstra. It would have saved billiions in payments to Telstra and reached the same point as we have now, the last mile controlled by a monopoly with an artificial pricing model. I'm still not sure why Labor saw it as necessary to compensate Telstra when customers churned from the 'obsolete copper' to the sparkly fibre NBN.

    As Labor predicted, the main competitor to the NBN is wireless. It will be interesting to see if Labor's prediction of 14% abandoning the NBN for wireless because it is cheaper will be shown to be pessimistic or optimistic.

    2 1 Reply
  3. mathew42
    Facepalm

    Mobile plans less than 1/3 of a home phone

    Fixed services other than connections to the National Broadband Network (NBN) continued their collapse, ditching $347 million

    Hardly surprising when mobile plans with unlimited calls are now under $10/month. A home phone from Telstra is $27.95 and calls are extra.

    1 0 Reply

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