As someone who does a lot of tenders in my day-to-day life I can only imagine the annoyance this morning at the prospective tenders of the Australian Broadband Network. To spend a lot of time and money in putting an offer together only to have your customer “change his mind” is tantamount having a hot pointer up the clacker.

The decision was explained off as none of the proposals met the governments requirements. I would wager that Telstra pulled out of the tendering process weeks ago because they thought that the governments requirements we unachievable for a profit. Which lets face it is pretty important and the reason a lot of things in the world happen.

I am not totally against the network and can see some of the commercial benefits from it but I think the taxpayer should have some joy for fronting the cash to construct the thing. Perhaps owning the dam network would be a start. Instead of building it, selling it off to be controlled by “others”.

If this network is such a huge requirement and needs to be built I suggest the government wind the clock backwards to the mid 90’s as follows. Telstra was sold to the public for $7.40 per share it now languishes in the $3 range. Based on these figure the current market value for Telstra is 41.7 billion. Buy that bastard back for less than half price and use this asset to build the network.

Please do not create a new government group, with all the red tape and politics that go along with them, to build the new broadband network. Please instead purchase back Telstra for 1.3 billion less than your current plan and use their profits to assist along the way

I am sure the group currently responsible for maintaining the existing network will have some ideas on how to proceed with a new and improved network. Well at least I hope so.