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the meaning of consultation .....
From the ABC
Telstra to consult public before removing payphones
Telstra says a plan to remove thousands of public payphones this year will only go ahead after it receives feedback from local communities.
The phones will be removed from unspecified locations.
But Telstra Spokesman, Rod Bruem, says local communities will be consulted before the removal process begins.
"That's a decision that's not final at this stage, and Telstra does always take into account community views," he said.
Telstra says a plan to remove thousands of public payphones this year will only go ahead after it receives feedback from local communities.
The phones will be removed from unspecified locations.
But Telstra Spokesman, Rod Bruem, says local communities will be consulted before the removal process begins.
"That's a decision that's not final at this stage, and Telstra does always take into account community views," he said.
"And we feel it's necessary to make clear how we go about that process to try to allay some of the concerns that we're seeing in the community after this announcement was leaked to the media."
- By Gus Leonisky at 21 Feb 2006 - 7:26pm
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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Hello?
"The number you are calling from is not connected..."
$27 maintenance fee per call
Telstra defends axing 4,500 public phones
Telstra is defending its decision to remove around 4,500 public phones from around Australia over the next six months.
Nine-hundred-and-fifty public phones have already been removed by the company since the beginning of this year.
Telstra spokesman Warwick Ponder says the phones it plans to take away are highly unprofitable.
"We have some payphones that lose about $27 every time somebody picks up the phone, so if you look at the revenue the payphone generates compared to the amount of money we spend on vandalism et cetera, some of them lose a lot of money," he said.
Mr Ponder says there will be widespread consultation with local communities before any phones are taken away.
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Gus: see cartoon at the head of this short line of blogs...
The unprofitable phones can still be used one way or the other in emergencies... Imagine the mobile network going down or people not having a mobile phone? No way to communicate.... Some might say it would be a blessing but in a communicative — albeit often full of fibs from the top down — society, we still need "public" phones even if they are not profitable...
Has everything we do got bring home some hard cash? Boy, ease up a bit...
...And if "we have some payphones that lose about $27 every time somebody picks up the phone", just make sure these payphones don't work, as usual... no call, no loss... Status quo preserved, good deed illusion still intact...
Strange...
Telstra scraps broadband network plan
Telstra has blamed government regulations for its decision not to invest in multi-billion-dollar broadband technology.
Telstra was planning to install a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) broadband network to improve Internet speeds but did not want its competitors to have access to it.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) says it is not viable to have more than one network and all telcos should be allowed to use it for a reasonable price.
But Telstra spokesman Phil Burgess says it will not spend $4 billion on the technology under the current regulations.
"The ACCC holds 100 per cent of the decision-making power over the short term and can with the stroke of a pen set prices and make commitments that will advance the FTTN investment by Telstra," he said.
ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel says Telstra is grandstanding and he is surprised by Telstra's position.
"Phil Burgess, with whom we've been dealing, has been saying as recently as a week ago that we were 98 per cent of the way there and there was 2 per cent to go," he said.
"That seems a strange starting point from which to suddenly say that we're terminating the whole proposal."
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Gus: I may be a fish out of water here, but I have the feeling there is something weird that we are not told... Something like the system is not fully reliable and Telstra is finding a way out not to go ahead...? who knows... like the untested mother of all system designed to replace the various Telstra mobile networks around?