Tls

[Frodo]

Yep, Telstra

It's decision to upgrade it's copper to coaxial should kill the NBN.

I'm in today.

 

[Reasonable]

Yep, Telstra

It's decision to upgrade it's copper to coaxial should kill the NBN.

I'm in today.

Bought in last week on Cum dividend status, @ 3.21 an attractive, fairly safe yield of 8% annually.

With Sol on his way I still think the NBN could be on the agenda, the thing that worries me the most is Rudd turning out to be a real dick.

 

[Frodo]

Bought in last week on Cum dividend status, @ 3.21 an attractive, fairly safe yield of 8% annually.

With Sol on his way I still think the NBN could be on the agenda, the thing that worries me the most is Rudd turning out to be a real dick.

Wat happened was Telstra was sold to the public. It has the copper infrastructure. Then ACCC regulated the price competitors paid for the copper. Now if Telstra rips out your copper wiring and replaces it with coaxial then the competition are stuffed, apart from the bush, where they will lose money. So whoever wins NBN won't be able to raise the capital as the risk on return is too high. Rudd is shafted well and proper.

 

[morgoth]

TLS is stuffed.

No CEO, rudderless at a key time and dealing with a govt that does not want to deal with them. Best case for TLS is that we get what happened with cable TV, ie duplication of network, ie price war where both sides lose money. The only hope is Sol was dealt out in order for them to be dealt back in.

TLS has to generate an extra $30 per subsciber per month to pay for the broadband upgrade in the Melbourne market. This from a company that borrows to pay their dividends and that always catches up with you in the end. They are starting to look like Telecom NZ.

 

[morgoth]

Broke $3 today. Conroy gave a speech on Friday that indicated the govt will not back down of the NBN. If they do, they can be sued by the other parties, they will use full regualtory powers to ensure TLS complies and he made the point that the NBN is in the national interest ie bigger than TLS.

Its the long kiss goodnight.

 

[Mordecai]

This advice from a complete novice - at least wait for it to turn around. The whole "it's trading at it's lowest ever..." doesn't fly and it could sail down a lot further.

Should be intersting to see how it deals with the $3 barrier.

 

[Frodo]

Broke $3 today. Conroy gave a speech on Friday that indicated the govt will not back down of the NBN. If they do, they can be sued by the other parties, they will use full regualtory powers to ensure TLS complies and he made the point that the NBN is in the national interest ie bigger than TLS.

Its the long kiss goodnight.

NBN is dead.

Conroy is a fool.

Let's wait and see.

 

[morgoth]

NBN is dead.

Conroy is a fool.

Let's wait and see.

Yes Conroy is thats why I find your assumption that he will do the logical thing amusing. Fools, often do the illogical, ie lock TLS out.

Tell me Frodo how can the govt let TLS back in without facing a massive law suit from the other parties?

 

[Mordecai]

Stall until they have a new CEO and say they deserve to be heard under new leadership? I don't know. From a chart point of view it certainly isn't looking good.

Let's see if $3 holds.

 

[morgoth]

One thing I should mention is that at the moment with the belief that the rally is on, defensive stocks that have held up well v the market are being sold down as a source of funds to buy turn-around stocks.

TLS is seen as the biggest source of cash given its uncertain outlook. Saw a comment the other day that at $3 being left out is priced in so only upside from here

Who knows, but in a market full of opportunity if you believe the worst is over these guys will not do much IMO.

 

[Frodo]

Yes Conroy is thats why I find your assumption that he will do the logical thing amusing. Fools, often do the illogical, ie lock TLS out.

Tell me Frodo how can the govt let TLS back in without facing a massive law suit from the other parties?

I'm not looking short term, in fact since commsec ditched protrader my daytrading is temporarily over.

TLS is crap. Worst company ever. But they have had to partially change culture, due to Sol.

But they have a monopoly. The copper that connects your telephone and broadband.

The ACCC forced them to give cheap access to competitors, what a rort.

Telstra are ripping it out.

That leaves Conroy with a multi billion Bush scheme. Stupid ALP idiot!!!!

 

[morgoth]

Frodo, did u see the ACCC actions today? All playing out as per the Conroy speech whereby the govt is making TLS very aware that if they attempt to scuttle the NBN then they will pay a big price.

 

[chaddles]

Just my opinion - if the Government want the NBN to be built in the near future and to a high quality then Telstra must be involved. Apparently the other bidders have not conformed to the Government minimum standards in their applications which could be a gateway for them to void the other bids, and allow a new application from Telstra.

Raising funds for anyone other than Telstra for such a massive project will be extremely difficult and could result in delays, and IMO could result in complications in the construction process due to lack of funds and inevitable cost blowouts.

This Government is weak and all talk, and there stance on this project is disgraceful which is symbolic of the economic 'leadership' of Rudd and Swan.

 

[Frodo]

Frodo, did u see the ACCC actions today? All playing out as per the Conroy speech whereby the govt is making TLS very aware that if they attempt to scuttle the NBN then they will pay a big price.

Yup, and I read this :-

Last Friday, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced to the national media that the National Broadband Network was not a dead parrot, countering my suggestion earlier that week that it had kicked the bucket, had ceased to be and was pushing up daisies, etc, etc.

“It’s just pining for the fjords,” he solemnly declared, adding: “Its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.”

Well, they were words to that effect. It seems the winner of the NBN – one of Optus, Acacia and Axia – has already been chosen and the press release drafted. It is just awaiting the Prime Minister’s return from saving the world at the G20 leaders summit in London on April 2, because he apparently couldn’t squeeze in the press conference before he went.

Meanwhile, the ACCC has now sued Telstra for not providing access for its competitors to seven exchanges, and the case will begin in the Federal Court in the second week of April.

So April really will be the cruellest month for Telstra, to quote TS Eliot’s The Wasteland.

And yesterday, to extend the Wasteland reference, the sharemarket asked: “What branches grow out of this stony rubbish?” Telstra’s price was pruned 2.3 per cent in a rising market, as analysts and fund managers started getting anxious about all these the regulatory shadows rising to meet Telstra, and coming up with “fear in a handful of dust”.

It was interesting that Telstra’s main competitor, Optus, in its press release about Telstra’s iniquities following the ACCC’s commencement of proceedings yesterday, referred to Telstra’s “alleged” denial of choice.

Optus said: “It’s a travesty that broadband consumers in areas such as Carlton, Port Melbourne and South Perth were allegedly denied choice for broadband services purely because Telstra had the market power to do so.”

Doesn’t Optus know? Is it not doing broadband in Carlton, Port Melbourne and South Perth? Hard to believe.

Telstra, meanwhile, says the cases referred to in the ACCC statement involved a few small mistakes that were rectified a year ago, and that the whole thing is a waste of time and money.

So unless Telstra’s group managing director of public policy and communications, David Quilty, is lying through his teeth, this will be a short hearing.

Either Optus and iiNet can put their DSLAM broadband equipment into Telstra’s Carlton, Port Melbourne and South Perth exchanges, or they can’t. Optus apparently doesn’t know. The ACCC press release doesn’t say the offences are ongoing, alleging instead that Telstra “has refused” access seeker requests for interconnection – not that it “is refusing”.

If it’s a past offence, admitted and rectified, can the judge really do anything other than tick Telstra off and tell the company not to do it again?

In general, the shadows that the market can see encircling Telstra are many: this baffling court case, the still alive NBN, and the American hejira, or exodus, as Sol Trujillo, Bill Stewart and Greg Winn all pack their bags for home, defectors from the petty wars (to quote Joni Mitchell’s song, Hejira).

But the market has surely overreacted. The latest court case does not mean, as some suggest, that “structural separation” is on the way. A government that can’t get a tax on alcopops through the Senate is not going to succeed with the deliberate destruction of billions of dollars through legislation to split a large public company.

With the NBN we must separate the announcement from the fact. As I said yesterday, all politics these days is about spin.

The important thing for Messrs Conroy and Rudd is to make an announcement. Whether the NBN can be funded is not their problem. Either Optus or Acacia will be dubbed “NBN builder” in April and will then have to go and find the money; they will line up behind the Gunns pulp mill project, which at least has a market for its product.

Telstra is trying to arrange things so it does not have to buy access on the NBN, or at least not much, by using a combination of cable and wireless. Unless the government is willing or able to legislate to create a statutory fibre monopoly that Telstra must use (see alcopops comment above) then the NBN is a dead parrot that is nailed to its perch.

As for the yanking of the yanks – yes the announcement that the old regime is ending without a new one in place creates uncertainty.

But I suspect we will discover that Telstra’s American revolution was actually skin deep. Sol Trujillo is the sultan of spin, the master of illusion.

He and his mates stirred the place up, got a pretty good 3G network built “on time and on budget” and carried out a barrister’s brief from the board to fiercely cross-examine the government and the ACCC.

Has it been a good idea to get everyone offside? Probably not, but it’s been quite exciting. Now the board can go back to hiring exiles from Optus.

And perhaps Telstra’s recent “Fake Stephen Conroy” kerfuffle, in which Telstra censored a Twitter profile by that name, suggests a more conciliatory approach is happening already.

Someone was writing a highly amusing stream of Twitter comments under the name @stephenconroy, based on the fake Steve Jobs blog that was popular for a while.

Such items as: "Today I received an iPhone. The IT people tell me that it is biometrically activated, but no matter how much I lick it, it won't turn on."

And: “Apparently LOL means 'Laugh Out Loud' and not 'Lots Of Love'. Now I'm going to have to re-read all those internet comments about me."

And: “Dear journalists; please do not continue to report on my enormous penis and ability to please the ladies. My personal life is off-limits."

It turns out the Fake Stephen Conroy was one Leslie Nassar, a Telstra employee, who says he was told to stop, which Telstra denies.

On Monday Nassar wrote on Twitter: “Yes, I’ve been asked to stop Twittering as @stephenconroy.”

And then next day, in response to something from Mike Hickinbotham, a Telstra PR, he wrote: “What bullshit. I wasn’t told to stop? Quilty had a f***ing stroke.”

And then in a blog post on Telstra’s nowwearetalking.com.au propaganda site, entitled 'The real facts about Telstra and the Fake Stephen Conroy', Hickinbotham said Telstra did not shut down Leslie’s Twitter’s account.

“Leslie is not going to lose his job as a result of announcing he is the Fake Stephen Conroy,” he wrote.

No, he will lose it for being the fake Stephen Conroy, or perhaps for something else entirely.

Hey, wait a minute – I’ve got an idea…Leslie Nassar for CEO! Anyone who can get up Stephen Conroy’s nose like that is foreman material.

 

[Frodo]

Yes Conroy is thats why I find your assumption that he will do the logical thing amusing. Fools, often do the illogical, ie lock TLS out.

Tell me Frodo how can the govt let TLS back in without facing a massive law suit from the other parties?

They just scrapped the tender process

TLS are back in!!

ps. Got to laugh. Rudd will build a 100Mb/s network for twice the original budget, over twice the time. By then it will all be wireless!!!

 

[Chief]

Last description I heard applying to Telstra was a low-growth utility hampered by government regulation. There are better things to buy right now.

 

[Frodo]

have traded 4 times since then, got excellent dividends and very good capital gains.

Holding none now but will get back in if it drops back to about $2.80

 

[Fire]

Why no TLS love? I would have thought the new governemnt deal would have had a more positive effect? Their future is secure, they are not as burdened, and they are in a great position to dominate a number of areas for the long term.

Or am I being overly optimistic?

 

[morgoth]

Why no TLS love? I would have thought the new governemnt deal would have had a more positive effect? Their future is secure, they are not as burdened, and they are in a great position to dominate a number of areas for the long term.

Or am I being overly optimistic?

Falling market share, no growth, spending billions on capital for no growth ie declining return on capital. Market's hate uncertainty and so with the Govt deal done the question is what business does TLS have going forward?

No one knows so people won't commit.