After announcing late last month that it would run out of time to pass legislation to break up incumbent carrier Telstra in November before the end of the year, Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy revealed this week that the government has reached a "significant" breakthrough with the incumbent carrier.
While Conroy would not reveal any concrete details, he did say that "we are confident we will have very significant progress to announce by Christmas."
Among the options that could be put on the table are that Telstra could sell its network, retain the assets or sell them to the government to incorporate them into its ambitious National Broadband Network (NBN) plan.
Citigroup telecom analyst Phil Campbell wrote in a research note that there's a possibility that Telstra could sell network assets to the Australian government's $39 billion National Broadband Network (NBN). "Telstra's involvement is important in lowering the NBN build cost," wrote Campbell.
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- Bloomberg has this article
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