By Peter Taylor
Public Policy & Communications, Telstra
In the spirit of not letting the facts get in the way of a good Telstra flogging, National’s Senator, Fiona Nash, has spent time spinning the truth instead of focusing her efforts on the genuine needs of her rural constituents.
The latest misinformation campaign Senator Nash fuelled was her baseless allegation that Telstra had used “portable Next G™ towers” as a way of “distorting the results of ACMA’s recent audits”(1).
To suggest that these were used to influence the ACMA audit is implausible and an absolute untruth. Had the Senator bothered to read the government department’s audit she would see that Telstra had no knowledge of where the audit was being conducted. In fact ACMA's own report says: "Telstra were not aware of ACMA’s drive survey route and so were not in a position to influence the test results."
It’s no secret that Telstra has a handful of portable base stations that are wheeled in for major events such as new year celebrations and sporting events. These are also used during times of a major service outage due to disasters when the permanent network has been damaged – such as floods or fires, or in exceptional circumstances such as a site in Canberra where a single portable base station is in place to manage an interference issue with the telescope, while we upgrade to a permanent installation.
Some simple mathematics would have led the Senator to a similar outcome. In writing up her press release the Senator failed to look at the numbers that would have told her that Telstra has more than 6,400 permanent Next G™ base stations and only a handful of portable base stations. How these could influence a random drive test would leave a grade five student scratching their head.
The Senator has also this week called on Telstra to “reveal the Next G™ mobile phones identified as “sub-standard” by ACMA in its recent report into Next G™ coverage” (2)– again the Senator has got this completely wrong. She has misunderstood the ACMA report. The Authority never made any such finding.
It's a bit like someone living in the outback buying a sports car, when they really should have a rugged four wheel drive, then suggesting the sports car is somehow 'dodgy' because it won't handle the conditions.
Despite the Senator’s suggestion, we think our customers are smart enough to know if their phone’s working to their expectations or not. If their phone is not working as well as they had come to expect from the old CDMA network they should get in contact with us on 1800 888 888 and we can look at options that include checking phone settings, accessories such as antennas and, where the process cannot otherwise resolve the issue, swapping the handset for a Blue Tick phone. The bottom line is if a customer has a genuine issue it will be addressed.
As a representative of rural people, Senator Nash should be embracing a new technology that gives her constituents more services and faster speeds, and finally eliminates the difference between services available in the bush and the city. Instead she is pursuing a partisan political campaign that puts her defence of the Coalition's legacy ahead of the interests of constituents.
The Senator would do better to call for some transparency and scrutiny to be applied to the OPEL deal – which her Party supported – which has awarded nearly $1 billion of taxpayer money on a plan that has delivered a zero outcome for rural Australia.
Perhaps some politicians need to head back to school and be reminded of the importance on correctly reporting facts – instead of spinning reality to create news headlines.
1. Minister left red faced on portable next g towers (www.fionanash.com.au)
2. Nash demands minister reveal dodgy phones (www.fionanash.com.au)