Telstra to fight bar on broadband bid

Telstra is preparing for war with the federal Government, marshalling its lawyers for legal action and gearing up to go it alone with a high-speed broadband network after being tossed out of the tender process for a $15billion publicly backed national network, reports The Australian.But the company now risks losing its grip on the lucrative fixed-line market for broadband and telephone calls, which help it reap between $3billion and $4billion in profits each year. As a result, Telstra yesterday suffered its biggest one-day fall on the stock market.To read this report in full in The Australian, see www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24806005-2702,00.html.Also see:No more aces up his sleeve as Trujillo caught bluffing by Michael Sainsbury
Sol Trujillo and his amigos like to play cards. Gin rummy in private and high stakes poker on the gaming tables of Las Vegas.To be any good you’ve gotta know when to hold ’em, and know when to fold ’em. And how to bluff.Trujillo’s hubristic rhetoric would have other players believe that he holds a hand full of aces.Yesterday, the Government called his bluff, and if the market reaction is to be believed, he has been holding a pair of nines.
www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24805136-5013584,00.htmlTrujillo and team play with fire
Forget its much lauded five-year turnaround plan. For the past few years, ever since Sol Trujillo was installed as chief executive, Telstra has employed a three-step strategy to muscle out any competition.It can be neatly condensed into three words: Bluster, Belligerence and Obfuscation.Yesterday we saw it again in spades.There was an air of bewilderment among the country’s leading investment analysts yesterday after Telstra had been excluded from one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects announced by a Federal Government in decades: the construction of a national broadband network.
business.smh.com.au/business/trujillo-and-team-play-with-fire-20081215-6z2o.html
business.theage.com.au/business/trujillo-and-team-play-with-fire-20081215-6z2o.htmlTelstra loses $6bn in NBN hit
The investment community delivered a savage vote of no confidence in the management of Telstra yesterday after the telco was dramatically kicked out of the tender for the federal Government’s $15 billion national broadband network.The move, which casts doubt over Telstra’s future earnings and profit margins, came as tensions emerged between the company’s board and management, as almost $6 billion was wiped off the company’s market value yesterday.
www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24807150-5013041,00.htmlTelstra quiet on NBN legal action
Telstra has not ruled out seeking legal action over its exclusion from the bidding process to build a $15 billion national broadband network.
www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24801170-5013040,00.html