John Linton I had a longish phone conversation yesterday with someone who has expressed an interest in buying Exetel in the past and is one of the people I have known long enough to have my home telephone number. He was enquiring whether Exetel might be for sale, either in toto or in part which I advised him was not the case. We went on to talk about the Australian telecommunications market in general and how his company was faring and how he, and "his team", saw the future of residential, small business, large business and the corporate marketplaces and the companies providing telecommunications services to them. Such general conversations aren't particularly useful but it was interesting to listen to another sensible person's view. I this case with a genuinely knowledgeable person who has been around as long as I have in this always interesting industry.
We discussed the ACT and Internode sales and his view was similar to mine - too much was paid for far too little and gave a better indication of the 'future' than the previous 'vanity' purchases in that iinet was almost certain to be taken over by TPG before the end of 2012. He had very different views to me about what would then happen but we both agreed that there was simply no 'room' in the Australian marketplace for iinet as either a standalone entity and that if TPG did take it over it would probably also see TPG's demise trying to assimilate the over charging/over staffed iinet in to it's strangely arranged company. Two agglomerations of diversely directed kluges would be an almost impossible commercial mix in a set of future marketplaces that Telstra and Optus are in the process of redefining in an ever shifting 'NBN2' future.
I listened far more than I spoke for the best part of an hour and it was refreshing to be a 'persuaded' rather than a 'persuader' for a change. I do agree that the future is 'all about Telstra' and no other company, including Optus, will have any 'say' in shaping the post - 'NBN2' marketplaces (whatever and whenever they become clear). He disagreed with my view that the 'NBN2' would turn out to be simply a freebie for Foxtel to disseminate its 'entertainment' at a lower cost than if it had to fund the build out of its own regional network but we agreed that a change in government would see a dramatic change to the future of NBNCo and a sell off (at a giveaway price) of whatever infrastructure had been funded by the taxpayer to Telstra within the first term of a changed government.
We concluded our pleasant discussion by agreeing to have lunch sometime in the near future to continue discussing the immediate future of supplying telecommunications services to non-residential customers and what impact the 100% loss of all 'wire line telephone revenues' would really have on future telecommunications providers when the federal government eventually realises that building an 'NBN2' based on subsidies from providing 'voice services' was so 20th century. When I hung up I thought about what I had heard and decided that Exetel's current plans were more sensible than those I had listened to during the conversation. Then again, I suppose that was an inevitable conclusion.
Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2012
ABN 350 979 865 46