How cool was Telecom. Should have just been benchmarked globally and set up to run two redundant networks for high availability. Would have been way cheaper.
Most of Telstra's market was open to competition by the late 80s. Mobiles, data, public phones, customer equipment and cabling were all subject to competition. The pots network was the last to go in 1991 when Optus began and in 89 we already knew that was coming.
They did, but then John Howard signalled his intention to privatise it, so no more investment, and that's why we still have 20th century Internet technology everywhere even though we're 20% of the way through the 21st century.
They were laying fibre! and most of it would have to be replaced these days anyway because of its age and difficulties to manipulate, back then they used slotted core which is so brittle you have to rub eucalyptus oil on your hands before you even touch it otherwise it just crumbles apart
