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The Telstra board are responsible for being excluded by only putting a 30 page proposal (mostly drawings) compared to other detailed bids. It was a perfectly fair process and the Telstra board stuffed up. Or do you think they hold no responsibility for it?
"pay in large amounts and probably the Australian Government at the next election"
I don't know. Telstra is so on the nose with the Australian public that I think Telstra's exlusion has added 5 points to the ALP in recent opinion polls.
"Australia's biggest telco was expelled from the project's tender process after lodging a bid that fell short of the government's stated objectives."
No, Telstra disqualified itself by not submitting a conforming proposal. Instead Telstra chose to write a letter specifying certain conditions which they required to be met, and the merest outline of the sort of network that they would propose. Anyone with any knowledge of tender or RFP processes would recognize that Telstra's letter did not constitute a proposal. I have to agree with Sydney Lawrence that it is a tragedy for Australians that the national government and the national carrier are at loggerheads, but Telstra was at war with the previous government too! One has to query Telstra's tactics when it is so obviously in the company's best interest to have good relationships with government, yet it has failed twice to achieve that end.
The best thing the government could do is cancel the tender, refund the bidders deposits and create a new tender which targets the problem areas. Eg remote communities and urban blackspots. It is pointless to replace the current network which meets the vast majority of Australians' requirements with one which offers no new functionality at a huge cost to taxpayers.
How can Australia's NBN be secure if they are granted the tender winner when the controlling interest of Singtel/OPTUS IS the Singaporean government.
It would be good to be true if one was to carry out espionage activities against Australia's interests. Smacks of Blind faith!!
Optus already owns and operates the sats for the govt (and ADF) - has done for over 15 years. So how is running a residential broadband service going to uncover any deadly secrets?
Smacks of racist crap like we had with the howard govt!
Oh thats right!! It was a labor Govt that gave OPTUS a foreign owned company free AUSSAT sats payed for by TAXPAYERS of AUstralia and now they want to hand over 4.7 B cash for insecure NBN!!
Let the free ride continue!!
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How a Government with any intelligence could,out of vindictivness, disqualify a company with the best capabilities to contribute and build the NBN is beyound comprehention.
Hopefully Mr Rudd will announce the calling of a new tender process, open to all, and with the rules and requests clearly spelled out. The RFP should have been a help in identifying what is required.
If this does not happen sit back and observe the foul-up of huge proportions. Sadly the Australian taxpayer will be the sucker who will pay in large amounts and probably the Australian Government at the next election.