Telstra is a truly amazing company. It offers the worst of both worlds.
The arrogance, complacency and sluggishness of any big government
enterprise combined with the rapaciousness of the nastiest private
sector firms.

Its new boss turns up to Canberra in a chartered jet to see the PM.
Yes, he’s busy – but it’s not like you’re pushed for choice when you need to
travel in SCAMland, the Sydney/Canberra/Melbourne triangle. No wonder the cockies – and most of us – hate Telstra. But it’s also
nice to see that some people have decided to stop whining and do
something.

“Seven years ago, the citizens of Bendigo decided to take charge of
their digital destiny. With the success of the Bendigo Community Bank
model as inspiration, they set about recruiting the 14 biggest
telecommunications users in the town. The result was the Bendigo
Community Telco,” Melissa Marino writes in an interesting piece in
today’s Age.

“Its first task was to set about providing what Bendigo Bank managing
director and telco chairman Rob Hunt describes as ‘almost an
irresistible opportunity’ – a carrier willing to take them on. On offer
was $7 million of guaranteed business each year to a supplier that
would install and hook them up to the broadband network.”

Meanwhile, us city folk can have our revenge via cheap voice over
internet protocol calls. You can download software – and the kit is
available at Dick Smith for only a couple of hundred bucks. It will be
interesting to see what this sort of thing does for the final sale
price of T3. Will it have been worth the pain?