I love a good spin story Not because I enjoy the marketing babble and butt-covering language but because it reveals that some companies, despite their huge wealth and resources, simply don't understand, or refuse to understand, the business environment they operate within. Telstra is a case in point.

Telstra is Australia's largest telecommunications carrier and the corporate identity that remains after the deregulation of telecommunications in Australia. Although the Australian government remains the largest individual shareholder over 50% of the company is privately held by shareholders (of whom I am one with a small number of shares).

Some time ago Telstra announced that it would be shutting down its CDMA network. When the old analogue network was closed down and replaced with GSM, CDMA was also rolled out as it offered a more cost effective option to covering Australia's rural population. That was all good but the time has come, according to Telstra, to decommission the CDMA network, replacing it with their NextG network.

The plan WAS for the CDMA network to close down on 28 January 2008 but the government intervened and ordered Telstra to keep the network open. Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy said

“I have notified Telstra today that at this point in time I am not in a position to declare equivalence between the Next G™ network and the CDMA networks”

Now comes my favourite bit. Phil Burgess, the Group Managing Director for Public Policy & Communications, said

"We welcome the Government's decisive action on this important transition in the nation's telecommunications future. We are also pleased that the Minister has provided clear direction to Telstra and to consumers about how to proceed to make sure this transition is completed: Telstra has to fix remaining problems and consumers have to make the transition."

So, Burgess is telling us that Telstra is happy that the government has told them to keep operating a service that is costing them money. Yeah right!

It seems that the new deadline is 28 April 2008. Consumers have some extra time to get new handsets, at no cost, and Telstra has more time to ensure that NextG has at least equivalent coverage.