Trevor responds...

as instructed - the Minister for Funds to Friends says, since his involvement - he has not known that this new fibre optic link would eliminate what happened during the communications blackout last month.

So Trev says, "As far as I've ever went with it is to say it could have substantially mitigated some of the fallout from the events of October 20th - and by that what I mean is - in other jurisdictions - so I'm given to understand anyway - when you have a multi-carrier system where you have a number of points of access to the outside world through fibre optic links most - most of the companies who are engaged in telecommunications industry and data transmission in those jurisdictions work out what has been referred to as 'mutual aid agreements' - where if sombody's system goes down they have an arrangement where they can access the other carrier's system for their data transmission."

So will an arrangement be forthcoming between Aliant and the D&D consortium? You figure that would be the most important part of a redundancy plan -

well Trev says, "We believe that if we have a mulit-carrier system here - which we hope we will by the end of next year - ahh that Aliant, Persona, Rogers, MTS Allstream - whoevers engaged in data transmission will be able to - if they're inclined - and obviously that's up to the individual companies to make those decisions - that they would have those types of arrangements so that we would not find ourselves in the situation that we were in on October 20th."

So 15 million dollars to the buddies later - our government and Minister of Funds to Friends does not know if such an agreement will be established - meaning we have missed entirely our objective - that is if the objective was anything other than giving funds to friends. And if Aliant were inclined to participate in this type of arrangement will it cost the taxpayers an additional 15 million dollars to get Aliant to play?

On the issue of second fibre optic link Trev says, "It's well known that there's been two fibre optic links out of Newfoundland since 1996 - nobody's disputing that - we never I don't think we said we were building a second fibre optic link - we said we are building another fibre optic link."

Well Minister - problem is all these media reported the same story from CP wherein the Premier was supposed to have said it - check with the boss by - was that on your cue card?

CBC StoryNetscape
NewsCNEWS
Canada.com News

Trev adds - on a new twist - that, "The primary reason for us becoming engaged in this - is to increase the level of competition here in the Province in the telecommunications industry."

Okay now the Minister is suggesting that government buy some competition for Aliant - perfect - Trev and Minister of Unnatural Resources - forget taking over Newfoundland Power - give Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro money to set-up an additional distribution line to our houses and we can pay them less than Newfoundland Power....

The other odd thing about this competition thing is Dean - after he left Rogers for Persona promised not to compete with Rogers for a full 12 months after leaving. That's just some of the juicy tidbits on Dean's employment contract with Rogers... I'll let you know the rest later...

Then he tries to calm the speculation of potential conflict of interest by saying Dean is not an owner just an employee of Persona - just an employee? President and CEO is not just an employee and more often than not receive stock options and bonuses. Tell you what Trev...let me see his employment contract. I want to judge if there is a conflict myself.

Then our little mouthpiece (Minister) for the Premier attempts to sell that RFP's would not have netted a better deal. I beg to differ there are other companies in this country that are more than capable of bidding and providing this service. I was told by an expert in Atlantic Canada that we may have received very competitive bids and services. Look at these two companies:HiberniaAtlantic Eastlink

On to the other area - Aliant - well they were not approached by government on cooperation with this or government services until the announcement was made. Interesting points - the only company that has to respond to the CRTC on these matters is Aliant. Aliant has over a half billion dollars (depreciated value) in assets in this province. Aliant has approached the government to partner on providing a province-wide 911 service for years - the government did not step to the plate.