The dotcom revolution will go down in history as having lost as many fortunes as it’s made. However, the infrastructure that remains in place for further IT&T development confirms that the public, government and business sector still have enormous faith in its potential as well as associated software and usage technologies.

The same limitation affects everything when you’re talking about the Internet. It hampers email transmission, the advent of digital TV, and websites that win a slew of design awards but which — in the real world — fail without a whimper when people don’t have ten minutes to wait for while some huge animation to download.

After paying $17 billion for the company, which they valued at $20bn including debts, Singtel announced early that they would still operate all Optus’ businesses — including local and long distance phone calls, the mobile phone network and pay TV.