Telstra has written a letter to the editor, in response to an article in the Australian Financial Review* (afr.com) that questions Telstra’s commitment to rural and remote Australia.

Though submitted on 3 September, our letter has yet to be published. So we've reproduced it here.

* Unfortunately we are unable to provide links to the original articles, as the AFR only makes such online material available to subscribers.

The letter the Australian Financial Review won't publish:

Dear Sir,

Les Wozniczka’s claim (More than just a sheep’s back, p75, 31/8/07) that Telstra is not interested in rural Australia is laughable, out of touch with reality, and as dubious as the wireless broadband network that his company and SingTel Optus have proposed to roll out.

Telstra’s commitment to rural and remote Australia is unparalleled – not just in the telecommunications industry but arguably by any company in Australia.

Telstra has a clear business commitment to serving all Australians and our presence in rural and remote Australia, through Telstra Country Wide, helps us improve both customer service and business performance. We have offices and employees spread across the country and they are an integral part of the communities in which they live and work, making significant contributions to their economic and social well-being.

Our latest financial results show Telstra invested $5.3 billion improving telecommunications services for its customers across Australia. Included in this was our ongoing investment in building the $1.1 billion Next G™ network, which has removed the service differential between country and city mobile customers and brought features such as mobile broadband and video calling to many parts of rural and remote Australia for the first time.

This ongoing service improvement in rural Australia occurs within a regulatory environment that forces Telstra shareholders to cover the majority of the cost of providing non-commercial services due to the ACCC’s deaveraged ULL prices stripping away the historical city/country cross subsidy, and the Universal Service Fund by which industry is supposed to fund it being grossly inadequate.

Telstra has been servicing the bush for over a hundred years – we have the knowledge, experience and people to get it right. Mr Wozniczka intimated that Futuris was a newcomer to the industry and his comments show it still has a lot to learn.

Geoff Booth
Group Managing Director
Telstra Country Wide
242 Exhibition Street
Melbourne VIC 3000