| Conroy promises a Telstra-free NBN very soon. |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Friday, 13 March 2009 | |
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Responding to questions about the possibility of re-opening discussions with Telstra Conroy said: "Telstra rolled the dice the way they did. They cannot get back in the process. He added that there was no way the government could abandon the NBN process and restart it to give Telstra another chance. We would be open to serious legal challenge if we decided to rerun the process." Conroy re-iterated in no uncertain terms the Government's commitment to its pre-election promise, saying: "This is one of the major election promises of Kevin Rudd. He talked about it in his first [pre-election] press conference and be talked about it in the last...This is a core promise and Labor's commitment to nation building...This is a policy that Kevin Rudd has had a great deal of support and interest in and he wants to be part of the announcement." Which means it will be made either before or after Rudd's scheduled overseas trip at the end of this month. But Conroy also went beyond the initial scope of the NBN to talk enthusiastically about backhaul, lending weight to recent rumours that backhaul wil be a significant component of the eventual NBN decision, although he sought to scotch suggestions that the announcement would be "all about backhaul" as some rumours have suggested. "We need more backhaul. This country is crying out for backhaul but to suggest that we are only going to do backhaul [is nonsense]," he said, later adding: "This country desperately needs a fibre backbone...About five percent [of mobile traffic] is through the air and about 95 percent through the ground." (he seemed to ignore the fact the microwave backhaul is used extensively in mobile networks). If you accept that the Government is going to go ahead then this leaves the three obstacles that have long been trotted out: the ability of anyone other than Telstra to build the network (probably a furphy); the ability of Telstra to derail the process by legal means and lack of co-operation; and the dearth of capital.
This article first appeared in ExchangeDaily, iTWire's daily newsletter for telecommunications professionals. Register here for your free trial.
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