Telstra believes it is the victim of a bureaucratic snub – by being left out of the countrys NBN party extravaganza.

It has been excluded from the bidding process for the construction of a national broadband network (NBN) by the Federal Government for what it perceives as being ‘trivial’ reasons.

The communications carrier says that the reason given for its exclusion was that it did not include a plan on how to involve small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the building of the network in its ‘request for proposal’ (RFP) lodged in November.

“The decision to exclude us from the RFP is the Commonwealth’s decision to make,” chairman Donald McGauchie says.

“But Telstra is the only company to have submitted a proposal with a real financial commitment – of $5 billion. It is the only company with the existing network, technical know how, world leading vendor, skilled workforce, established wholesale systems and proven track record of building world-class networks.”

Telstra is adamant it fully complied with the proposal requirements, which it asserts did not require a SME plan to be lodged. It believes the Government had used a peripheral issue to exclude it.

The Federal Government is yet to respond to Telstra’s claims