SOMETHING fishy is going on with the telephone companies.
The Federal Government seems to have pulled out all the big guns.
In the competitive world of big business and big government we are quite used to a bit of warfare and while the guns can be bit scary, the general public will probably be the ultimate victors.
It's all been a bit hard to understand because of the claims and counterclaims. And it hasn't been helped a lot by Minister Conroy calling it a "win-win" situation.
Charlie has missed most of the action because he has been up at the Victorian alps fishing in his favourite stream, the Delatite. He came back devastated because his trusty stream that has always been full of trout has stopped giving him his usual bag.But we forgive him because he did pick the turn of the economy with precision.
Charlie's problem is that the spoilsports at the fisheries department have stopped stocking the river with trout as they have been doing each spring since the end of World War II.
Charlie calls his favourite spot on the bend ''the big pond''. The taxpayers have been making it easy to fish the big pond by paying for the restocking each year. It cost the taxpayers a bit but Charlie reckoned the Government could afford it. He, too, thought it was a win-win. But now with no more free fish, he is "spitting chips" - and I have suddenly worked out what has happened at the phone companies.
The Government has decided that it will stop restocking the Telstra BigPond because it doesn't seem right to let Telstra charge the other phone companies too much for the use of the old-fashioned copper wire.
But then Louise says, "So what's the use of being a virtual monopoly if you can't charge too much?"
Now Telstra has to decide if it wants to just be the old-fashioned copper wire phone company. Nothing wrong with that, as it makes plenty of money.
But it would have to give up its move into the modern world of Foxtel, digital and all of that.
You just have to work out which century you want to live in - the 20th or 21st.
Charlie reckons that Telstra should have seen this coming. And what's more, he said it should not have called its new digital service BigPond. He thinks this pond's out of fish but I'm not so sure Charlie has got this one right.
I reckon Charlie has been in the right spot all the time. He just hasn't been fishing long enough or deep enough.
But smart fishermen are patient -such as Senator Conroy and the public. They don't mind a bit of competition on the river bank, because they know that there are plenty of big fish in there ready to fry.
