Ever wanted to know what it’s like to be verbally slapped by a sitting Senator? Ask Vodafone CEO Bill Morrow. He just got served by Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, for accusing the government of unfairly subsidising Telstra. I have never read a quote that should have contained the word “Vodafail/” than this.
The quotes came out of a telco event in Canberra covered by the Australian Financial Review. It’s being reported that Conroy compared Morrow to Sol Trujillo — the ex-head of Telstra who spent his tenure giving the proverbial finger to the government.
This gets nasty, fast:
Despite advances in mobile phones, they [Vodafone] don’t want to provide services in regional Australia.
I find it extraordinary that the world’s largest mobile operator wants to close down a regional network for people they don’t service. They lost 750,000 customers due to poor service and they want to lecture to everybody, they want to cut those people off. They are doing a good enough job of that themselves.
Ouch.
Read Morrow’s original op-ed here. [AFR]