Saturday 27 May 2006

Open letter to TelstraClear, from a customer

>Written by a customer in response to a letter from TelstraClear trumpeting their excitement at the Government's nationalisation of Telecom's lines. No egos were bruised in the making of this letter.

Dear TelstraClear

Thanks for this message. Unfortunately, I seem to be one of the few New Zealanders who are disgusted with your support of the government's bullyboy tactics with regard to its decision concerning Telecom and broadband. Let me state for the record that I am an otherwise satisfied TelstraClear customer. I have been a customer since returning permanently to New Zealand 11 years ago. You have all my toll, internet and residential business.

The fact is that Telecom owned the broadband service. Broadband was its property. But the state has obscenely overridden those property rights in a blatant vote-buying exercise. The position taken by other service providers regarding the government's enforced LLU is reminiscent of a group of kids crowded around a schoolyard fight egging on the bully. In other words, you have lobbied the state to use force (against Telecom) on your behalf.

You picked the wrong fight. Rather than support state force against a company, you should have fought against its (the government's) appalling Resource Management Act that all but prevents you (and other suppliers) from building your own networks; the RMA hampering progress, particularly of a commercial nature, as it routinely does.

In conclusion, please don't grizzle if, in future, the state should step in and enforce an action against your company. The state never solves problems. It subsidises them. And the government that can give you something is the same government that can take it away.

SR

TAGS: Politics-NZ, Telecom

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't Telstra currently opposing the unbundling its line in Australia ? If it is then it is a double standard of what they have done lobbying the government to do exactly that of what they opposed in their own country.

Anonymous said...

Telstra has smashed any competition with regulation. That is their modus operandi. They will be looking to regulate vodafone next.

Presley is 'a' face of theft -not 'the' face of theft. She is a very small cog in the big picture. I don't care for her business ethics, but neither do I see why she should be singled out for opprobrium here.There are many others just as guilty.

Anonymous said...

Karma kicking in - The parent company of competitor ihug currently has its shares suspended in Australia, pending some kind of negative financial announcement.


TEL is the cheapest share in the developed world IMNSHO.

Anonymous said...

Telecom got the country's phone lines for ...
One dollar ... END OF STORY

Anonymous said...

Them's still their phone lines, but. Or at least, they were.

Libertyscott said...

Um $1? I think you are confusing that with the Kiwishare, which the government owns worth $1, or the government buying the railway network from TranzRail for $1.

The sale of Telecom brought in $4.25 billion for the government - hardly a dollar, unless you're drinking too much absinthe.

Ask telcos how much access they get to Telstra's lines in New Zealand? None - it is Telstra property, it isn't allowed.