<speculation>
- 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.
- Get the whole internet (writ large) industry excited with the measure; yet most question the amount.
- Timing: just around the time the Managing Director of Telstra is changing. New MD, new culture
- Do not announce plans, technical details nor any details at all.
- The exposure of “deep pockets†by the Government forces Telstra (and Optus, and other existing fibre owners) realise that the Government is serious
- The Government buys (not builds) part of the existing commercial infrastructure; and exchanges a part of the 49% private ownership to these private organisations.
- Note: There are about 10.4 billion listed shares of Telstra outstanding; current “fair market value†is $4.03. This is $42 billion dollars.
- Note that Telstra is already part-owned by the Future Fund
- Telstra would probably retain part ownership of the new entity, and keep 100% of its Retail network.
- Telstra relinquishes their wholesale/infrastructure into the new entity;
- 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.
- It may not actually cost $43 billion, nor take 8 years. This may just be a smart negotiation tactic
</speculation>