TelstraClear is fuzzy on details

By PETER GRIFFIN and NZPA

TelstraClear is the new name of the country's second-ranked telco, but less clear is the future of its employees and which of the merged company's divisions are for the chop.

The new name leaves behind once and for all the memory of Saturn, the pay TV operator that had its roots on the Kapiti Coast under TelstraSaturn's former leader, Jack Matthews.

Rosemary Howard, the organisation's new chief executive, continued to dripfeed details of the merger yesterday, delivering much rhetoric but little substance as she talked up the prospects of TelstraClear, which has 11 per cent of the market and about 300,000 customers.

In the only interview she has given since taking the job, Ms Howard said she would like to increase market share to as much as 50 per cent, despite facing an incumbent with the bulk of both the residential and business markets.

She confirmed that about 150 jobs at TelstraSaturn had been axed so far in a clean-out unrelated to the merger with Clear.

Further purges in both organisations are expected in January.

"[The redundancies] would have occurred in any case," she said.

"In fact, it would have been worse because when you look at the financial performance of TelstraSaturn to date, it isn't where our shareholders need it to be."

Ms Howard remained vague about the future of TelstraSaturn's $1.1 billion network rollout and the position of hundreds of contractors' jobs related to cable expansions in Christchurch. Work on the Christchurch network had been "paused", she said, while TelstraClear identified double-ups in services.

A network in the northeast of Christchurch is set for completion by May, and the company would then consider whether to take the work further, considering that Clear had networks in the northwest suburbs.

There is also no word on the executive structure of TelstraClear, nor whether it will continue its Pay TV operations, which analysts consider unlikely.

Ms Howard said that over the next 12 months, an integration team would examine Clear and TelstraSaturn's businesses with an eye to building new networks and leasing existing ones.

"We are certainly not withdrawing from any segment of the market.

"We are absolutely committed to the residential market as well as to the business and wholesale markets, but we have to do some careful thinking about what our options are to most profitably meet the residential market," she said.

An advertising industry source close to TelstraClear said the new name reflected the focus the new entity would place on the business market.

Although the TelstraSaturn name had suffered, Telstra was strong in the Australian business market, and Clear had battled to gain businesses' confidence.