Dan Warne15 December 2008, 9:31 AM
Telstra is out of the running to build the national broadband network, after the Government's expert panel rejected the company's non-compliant bid.
The Federal Government has excluded Telstra from the national broadband network process. The company was advised of the rejection by the Government on Sunday night.
The NBN expert panel rejected Telstra based on what Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo said was a "technicality" -- that Telstra did not include a small-to-medium enterprise plan as part of its 12 page proposal to the government.
Trujillo says this was a technicality because Telstra had separately submitted an SME plan to the government in September, before its formal proposal.
He said Telstra had not even been allowed to make a presentation to the government's expert panel on its network.
"We are a bit surprised at taking this action on a triviality, which we are very clear in our minds, we were fully compliant in the language of the RFP in terms of how we handled this matter. I don't want to speculate beyond that, because we've not had any conversation with the Minister or the appropriate people involved yet," he said.
"The important point is that our proposal is the only one that is funded, has true technical capability and workforce and trucks -- to actually deliver and integrate into our existing network," he said.
Trujillo said the Department of Communication had a long history of failing to deliver on infrastructure. "Three and a half years and counting on the NBN, an RFP process that's six months behind schedule," he said (ignoring the fact that the delay was almost entirely due to Telstra delaying providing infrastructure details on its existing network.)
More to come...