Telstra warned

By Kath Gannaway
THE FEDERAL Government has given Telstra until Wednesday to sign a contract which will connect Hoddles Creek residents to ADSL broadband.
“Telstra are registered to be able to receive the subsidy to assist the turn-on for that exchange and we are just waiting for them to sign,” Frank Peppard from Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Senator Helen Coonan’s office told the Mail on Monday.
“They (Telstra) applied for the money and were successful and all that’s needed is for them to sign the standard contract that the other companies (broadband providers) have signed,” he said.
The story is the same one, however, that Hoddles Creek residents heard three months ago when they, along with McEwen MP Fran Bailey, called on Telstra to “enable” the exchange.
The Mail reported in July that residents were frustrated by the delay in getting a service which was already available to nearby communities.
Ray Turner spoke for many Hoddles Creek residents and business operators when he said at the time that the delay was unacceptable. Three months down the track an unacceptable situation has become intolerable.
Mr Turner said the community had met the requirements for the number of interested residents three years ago and Telstra repeatedly promised the service throughout 2005 and 2006, each time failing to deliver.
Last week he said the brand new ADSL-enabled exchange had now been waiting for connection for nine months and he and other locals gathered at the exchange, their mood had changed to one of total frustration.
Their coping-mechanism, in the face of a continuing standoff between the government and Telstra and repeated phone calls to Telstra, is now to joke about turning the aesthetically pleasing building into a cafe.
While pulling up short of saying Telstra were being bloody-minded about the situation, Mr Peppard did say the company had been on a “capital strike”, refusing to turn-on more than 400 exchanges just like Hoddles Creek.
Telstra on the other hand are saying they have been poorly treated by the government which recently announced funding agreements with 14 providers including Elders, Internode, Westnet and Westvic Broadband. Others, including Optus, are yet to complete funding deeds.
Telstra spokesman Patrick O’Byrne said Telstra had delivered billions of dollars of infrastructure while other providers sat back and waited for cheap access to the service.
He said while Telstra had put the infrastructure in at Hoddles Creek, under the new government contracts any of the other telcos could deliver broadband to Hoddles Creek residents.
“There are thousands of exchanges where Optus has their equipment in our buildings,” he said.
On Friday, Mr O’Byrne told the Mail discussions were happening between Telstra and the Federal Government about Hoddles Creek.
“That exchange is ready to go. We have spent all the money and are the only ones who have invested but have to open up and provide access to a whole range of other providers who can come in and access Telstra infrastructure,” he said.
“Yes, we are ready to deliver broadband, what we need to establish is whether turning it on (at Hoddles Creek) will provide a return on that investment,” he added.
Mr Peppard said Senator Coonan’s office was optimistic that Telstra would come to the party, and Mr O’Byrne was saying last week he was hoping for good news for Hoddles Creek residents too.
The residents have put their cafe plans on hold, but are not rejoicing just yet.
“We’ve been hopeful for so long, I don’t know that these latest assurances give us any hope,” resident Patricia Reeves said.
“If it happens we’ll be thrilled to bits … but we will believe it when it happens.”