When it comes to broadband project cooperation Telstra CEO is open to any option

In order to work on the NBN project with the Federal Government the Australian broadband operator has advised that it is not ruling out the sale of its assets.

According to David Thodey, the chief executive of Telstra, the company is ‘open to any option’ including the sale of its assets to the state controlled company that is running the project to cooperate with the Australian Federal Government in its creation of a super-fast National Broadband Network that is currently expected to cost around £43 billion.

Mr Thodey recently advised in an interview with the Wall Street Journal “vending in of assets, making capability available are all on the table,” along with other options,” as long as we can protect shareholders.”

Plans to build a high-speed National Broadband Network that would be capable of offering users connection speeds of up to 100Mbps were announced back in April 2009 by Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister.

Although the building of the new network could turn Australia into one of the most wired countries in the world it could also render vast sections of the cable and fixed-line networks owned by Telstra, which is the largest telecommunications company in Australia, completely redundant. The plan was, however, still praised by Thodey despite this fact.

He advised “We applaud the government’s vision in terms of the information superhighway for Australia. We are actively working with the government to see how we can participate,” while protecting shareholder value.

The relationship between the Government and Telstra had often become quite strained back when Sol Trujillo had been CEO and these latest comments from Thodey, who replaced the company’s previous CEO in May, show just how much effort he is going to in trying to repair the damage that was caused.

Source- Total Tele