Telstra to sue Coonan over CDMA threat
Telstra is keeping its lawyers busy: the telco has decided to take the government to court once again, this time over the planned closure of its CDMA network.
Telstra said in a statement that it has begun proceedings in the Federal Court on the matter, accusing the Communications Minister Helen Coonan of "hamper[ing] the Next G network broadband deployment by prejudging the outcome of her consultation with Telstra on the draft CDMA licence condition".
Telstra had planned to close its CDMA network in January of next year, by which time it claims its Next G network will offer equal or better coverage.
However, the Minister ruled last month that Telstra will not be allowed to switch off the CDMA network without government permission, after repeatedly expressing concerns over Next G's performance.
On announcing the licence condition last month, Coonan said: "I have just spent the last six weeks on the road across Australia and based on the level of frustration in the community, it is clear that this issue needs Telstra's urgent and genuine attention."
Telstra said it has filed documents with the court which show the Minister ruled on blocking the closure before the telco had given "submissions and evidence" on why the obstruction was not needed. Telstra Country Wide group MD, Geoff Booth, said in a statement: -By law the Minister was required to consider the matter with an open mind and recent comments by her and her colleagues show that this was clearly not the case." Should the legal challenge be successful, Coonan will not be able to issue the licence condition until Telstra's objections are heard.
The Minister's Office did not respond to request for comment.
The Communications Minister and Telstra are already engaged in another court battle, over funding for the recently announced AU$1 billion bush WiMax network. In that case, Telstra alleges that only the winning bidder for the network, OPEL, was made aware that an extra AU$300 million in funding was available for the scheme. The telco also accused Coonan of refusing to make documents pertaining to how the tender was selected available for public scrutiny.