Fed: New telco figures good news for Telstra sale, says Alston
By Heather Gallagher
MELBOURNE, Dec 20 AAP - New figures showing an improvement in Telstra's performanceproved a change in the telco's ownership would not harm its service, the federal governmentsaid today.
Communications Minister Richard Alston said figures released by the Australian CommunicationsAuthority (ACA) today were "very encouraging" and showed privatisation of the telco wouldnot affect its performance level.
The ACA's Telecommunications Performance Monitoring Bulletin said Telstra was now completing96 per cent of in-place service connections within two working days and repairing 92 percent of network faults on time.
A statement from Telstra said it was the telco's best performance since the introductionof Customer Service Guarantees (CSG) five years ago.
Senator Alston told reporters in Melbourne: "They (the figures) simply demonstratethat any change in ownership is irrelevant because we now have a regulatory regime inplace which insists on meeting these standards and that will be the case irrespectiveof any change down the track.
"The furphy that the Labor Party would run that somehow things would get worse is contradictedby all the evidence which shows that since we started on the privatisation push some yearsago, service levels have just continued to improve."
Telstra Group Managing Director of Infrastructure Services Michael Rocca said the resultsshowed customers could rely on Telstra's commitment to improving service levels.
The ACA bulletin also found Optus improved its new connection performance in urbanareas by more than five percentage points to 94 per cent.
National new service performance by Primus fell for each area category, with urbanperformance down four percentage points to 90 per cent, major rural performance down 13percentage points to 82 per cent and minor rural performance down eight percentage pointsto 92 per cent.
ACA chairman Tony Shaw said Primus had been asked to explain its performance for the quarter.
Senator Alston said Australia's telcos were achieving world-best performance standards,with no other countries having timelines for installation and fault repairs.
He said the bulletin came off the ACA report which showed that Australian consumerson average were "benefiting to the tune of more than $600 per year per household as aresult of our reforms".
AAP hmg/gfr/was/de t
KEYWORD: TELCOS NIGHTLEAD
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