Australia’s NBN and FttN – fibre to the nowhere?

by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Friday, 08 August 2008

Page 1 of 3 ! Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) has reached a “key moment” with August 22 set as the date by which carriers must submit the remaining “network information” the Government wants to send to NBN bidders, so they can then start finalising their NBN proposals. But as telecoms analyst Paul Budde states, the FttN proposed for Australia is already out of date, with FttH the preferred standard being rolled out overseas. Who wants Fibre to the Node (FttN) when the rest of the world is rolling out Fibre to the Home (FttH) instead? Looks like Australia is the only country that can’t even decide on the construction of outdated broadband technology to help it “compete” in the digital economy, putting what’s meant to be the luckiest country in the world on the road to a digital nowhere. www.ugh.com! While the Australian Federal Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, enjoys a trip overseas, his acting replacement, Anthony Albanese MP, has busied himself releasing “instruments setting out the network information that carriers are to provide for the National Broadband Network process, and the rules to safeguard the information” – apparently being a “key moment”. But the music these instruments are playing seems to be out of key with the Australian Federal Opposition, who scream in outrage that Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has effectively been silent over the National Broadband Network since his election, despite repeatedly promising before the election to move Australia into the broadband fast lane. Since then, Australia’s dominant telco, Telstra, its major competitors, the Federal Government and the Opposition have played ongoing games of claim and counterclaim, calls for structural separation, with delays setting in and nothing much really happening. Of course the previous 11 years when the Federal Opposition was in Government it too could have done a lot more but at least they’re a lot more outraged about the slow process in opposition. Anyway once the Federal Government gets the information it wants by August 22, it will then think about it some more before, hand over that information to bidders, and then announce yet another date. 12 weeks before that date will be made available for tender bidders to “consider the network information” and submit a final proposal, although the Opposition quotes Telstra’s Dr Phil Burgess saying: “They [The Government] are sitting on their hands.” He is also quoted in an ABC news report saying in relation to the process timelines: “I have no idea. We've given up trying to guess what the process is going to be, a process was laid out but the deadlines keep slipping, the requests for information keep expanding, so it's anybody's guess when the process will end.” Continued on page 2. << First page <   1 2 3 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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