If the new CEO of Telstra, Australia's incumbent telecommunications carrier, did say the following to the Telstra Board my only criticism would be that he is about three and a half years behind Ben Verwaayen saying the same thing to BT's Board:
"Delivering a stern message to the Telstra board, Mr Trujillo said Australia lagged behind its international peers in terms of investment, the take-up of broadband services, pricing and capacity. He said the nation was in the bottom quartile for developed countries."
Given the absence of any telco industry experience on the Telstra Board it will no doubt come as news to them. With fixed line telephony revenues falling around the world Telstra should have had a strategy in place for several years. Yet you could add no VoIP service on offer to the damning assessment above. In terms of capacity and pricing via bit caps Telstra's offerings are on a par with India except there the price for an equivalent service is less than US$ 6. No one, of course, expects Telstra to charge similar prices as Australia undoubtedly has higher wage costs and so forth. But you would expect Australia to be doing better in terms of capacity and pricing. The idea 200 megabytes caps on 256 kbps is anywhere close to being internationally competitive is risible.
At a time when Verwaayen was focusing on domestic broadband Telstra's Board was furthering adventurous investments Hong Kong. Why exiting Board Members and poorly chosen executives should be lauded and rewarded, at levels that suggest they were wildly successful, is beyond comprehension. The sooner Telstra is privatised and an appropriate and accountable Board appointed by shareholders the better. Unfortunately, the impact of past appointments will linger by way of declining price for the rest of Telstra to be sold.
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