www.nickhodge.com

<spec­u­la­tion>

1. Announce you have a kitty of AU$4.3 Bil­lion, as a part of $43b over 8 years to cre­ate a whole­sale, fibre-to-the home network.
2. Get the whole inter­net (writ large) industry excited with the meas­ure; yet most ques­tion the amount.
3. Tim­ing: just around the time the Man­aging Dir­ector of Tel­stra is chan­ging. New MD, new culture
4. Do not announce plans, tech­nical details nor any details at all.
5. The expos­ure of “deep pock­ets” by the Gov­ern­ment forces Tel­stra (and Optus, and other exist­ing fibre own­ers) real­ise that the Gov­ern­ment is serious
6. The Gov­ern­ment buys (not builds) part of the exist­ing com­mer­cial infra­struc­ture; and exchanges a part of the 49% private own­er­ship to these private organisations.
   1. Note: There are about 10.4 bil­lion lis­ted shares of Tel­stra out­stand­ing; cur­rent “fair mar­ket value” is $4.03. This is $42 bil­lion dollars.
   2. Note that Tel­stra is already part-owned by the Future Fund
   3. Tel­stra would prob­ably retain part own­er­ship of the new entity, and keep 100% of its Retail network.
7. Tel­stra relin­quishes their wholesale/infrastructure into the new entity;
8. End res­ult: a Nation­al­ised Broad­band Super-highway; just like roads (at least a major­ity of the roads). Just what the non– neo-liberal Labor Gov­ern­ment wants.
9. It may not actu­ally cost $43 bil­lion, nor take 8 years. This may just be a smart nego­ti­ation tactic

</speculation>