Yesterday, many Telstra shareholders heaved a sigh of relief when 99.45% voted to accept a peace deal between the company and the Federal government. In exchange for eleven billion dollars in compensation, Telstra will relinquish it's copper wire network to the National Broadband Network ( NBN ), which will decommission it and use it's existing cableways to connect it's optic fibre system to Australian homes.
It's been a long and rocky road, made harder by past arrogant Telstra management seeking a fight and making unrealistic demands to retain monopoly rights. Had this shareholder vote failed, Telstra would have been committed to a fight with the NBN for market share of communications - pitting it's old copper wire system against their optic fibre. Picking that winner would have been a no brainer !
This is a win - win - win situation. Wollongong has advanced in priority to be amongst the first connected to the NBN and the work should go seamlessly now that optic cable will use the Telstra cableways and not require streets to be dug up to lay a new cable highway.
Telstra has avoided a nasty commercial fight - and has emerged as a cashed up company with eleven billion dollars in the kitty to finance the way forward. Long suffering shareholders - who saw their investment dwindle to below two dollars a share as uncertainty over the company's future depressed market interest can look forward to better times.
As they say in the classics - " Winners are grinner's ! "
No comments:
Post a Comment