LE>> Austel has the power to peg Telstra's prices. Witness the fact that in
AT> So they can't monopolise the market by raising prices or lowering them
AT> so that others can't compete?
Do you remember Compass Airlines ? (No ? Not surprised). When the airline
industry was deregulated, Compass barged in with lots of borrowings and not
much in the way of remaining liquid assets, and offered cheap flights. It
was instantly nuked out of existence by Ansett and Australian Airlines (or
was it still TAA then ? Anyway...) who dropped their prices way below
break-even point, and temporarily wore some losses in order to bankrupt
Compass. When Compass was safely buried, they raised prices to the
oligopoly level again.

Austel has the power to prevent a damaging price war of this type.

-- Lewin A.R.W. Edwards [Team OS/2]  Tel 0419320415 * 0412809805 * 0414927056
@EOT:

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