Specialists in Business Information Solutions, Lasata Managing Director Steve Wall says their products ‘enable executives to make faster, more informed decisions and allow companies and organisations to extract more value from their information assets.’

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.

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.