Rural Australia must revitalise the political clout it wielded in the early days of Telstra’s privatisation and ensure it is the first priority in the Federal Government’s National Broadband Network (NBN) program.
Telecommunications analyst, Paul Budde, who operates his international telecommunications research company BuddeComm from rural Bucketty, in NSW’s Lower Hunter Valley, believes the bush needs to regain the momentum that led to the formation of Telstra Country Wide in June 2000.
Telstra Country Wide, a successful response to rural concerns that bush service levels would suffer from the privatisation of Telstra, was “slowly bled to death” during Sol Trujillo’s time at the helm, Mr Budde said.
While Country Wide is still listed as a business division, there now appears to be no way for rural customers to directly contact Telstra Country Wide other than physically walking into an office.
The Country Wide hotline number defaults to the standard Telstra call centre, and the Internet address supplied in phone books redirects the user to Telstra’s front page.
“Trujillo shut the door on Country Wide and it became a token sort of organisation that had a name but was a lame duck,” Mr Budde said.
Full story in The Land, September 3.
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