Ed,

The Optus outage last week could happen to anyone, it happened to the ANZ bank only a month ago where again Woolworths could not do business without cash and again the Optus outage caused Kaos, where a lot of business could not be done without cash.

The problem is we need more competition in the telco sector and lots of other sectors such as retail, airlines and numerous other sectors that are duopolies such as hardware.

Where are the free trade agreements that should bring in companies like Tesco and Sainsbury’s to challenge Coles and Woolworths, Tru Value hardware and Walmart to challenge Bunnings and French and British telecom to challenge Telstra and Optus.

In addition, now that the Commonwealth Bank has a hybrid model of technology and face to face banking in Yamba they should reopen Maclean branch with the reverse hours to Yamba ie when Yamba closes to face to face Maclean opens, remember Maclean is a growing area with thousands of people moving in around the Townsend / Gulmarrad area and the announcement of a 24 hour service station at Townsend, so if there is a Optus style outage again, people have access to cash. As the Royal Mint has said, cash is king and is a necessity as these kind of technology problems will continue to occur even more frequently if you believe energy companies that we will have more blackouts.

Alan Mosley, Yamba