Telstra accused of cover up - News

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Telstra accused of cover up

By Megan McAuliffe, ZDNet Australia
September 06, 2001
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/soa/Telstra-accused-of-cover-up/0,139023165,120253465,00.htm

The Federal Opposition has forced Telstra into disclosing an embarassing cover up, revealing a backlog of 20,000 faults on its telephone network Australia-wide.

According to the Shadow Minister for Regional services, territories and local government, Senator Sue MacKay, Telstra has been forced to admit there is a backlog of more than 20,000 telephone faults waiting to be repaired across Australia.

-Eighty percent of those are probably minor, however, it's the serious ones we're after," Senator MacKay said.

The opposition party's investigation came about as a result of a leak to media, which revealed there is a build up of 3,500 faults in the Tasmanian region alone, Senator MacKay told ZDNet Australia.

Telstra initially refused to release information detailing the extent of the backlog nationwide, citing -commercial in-confidence". The audit office, however, produced a report which forced the telco to come clean.

Some of the faults outlined in the report date back as far as 1995.

Senator MacKay said major cuts in the telco's capital expenditure budget made in preparation for its public sale contributed heavily to the backlog.

The government's plan to also sell Telstra's Network Design and Construction (NDC) unit and its National Network Solution (NNS) arm--which builds and maintains the network--would further cripple the service to regional communities, according to Senator MacKay.

She said Telstra's neglect on regional Australia has caused the network to become increasingly rundown and it's full privatisation would make matters worse because it would "leave it up to the private company to determine its own priorities and go where the profits are, which is not regional Australia."

-It's a disaster waiting to happen. What if faults occur in the hospitals?" Senator MacKay said.

In response, the telco in preparing material for submission to the senate.

A Telstra spokesperson told ZDNet it was "inappropriate" to comment at this stage.