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VIRTUALISATION Creating an illusion of progress on the Tasmanian NBN
VIRTUALISATION Creating an illusion of progress on the Tasmanian NBN | Creating an illusion of progress on the Tasmanian NBN |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Thursday, 16 July 2009 | |
  
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But we don't know who is going to build it - tenders have not even been called - and we don't know exactly where it will run or where access and exit points will be. Despite this the government proudly announces "Stage one" of construction and assures us that procurement of key inputs will commence shortly and that construction will soon begin. To prove the point, it claims that "a huge amount of preparation including design and planning has been undertaken" and releases an RFP: for concrete. This is exactly the situation with the NBN in Tasmania. The Tasmanian government has issued a press release headed "Stage 1 of the National Broadband Network rollout in Tasmania begins." It opens with the statement "The Australian and Tasmanian Governments today announced the start of the first stage of the rollout of the National Broadband Network in Tasmania with the release of an open competitive tender for fibre optic cable by Aurora Energy." Big deal. Premier David Bartlett claimed that: "Today's announcement follows a huge amount of preparation including design and planning undertaken by Aurora Energy to enable procurement to start in advance of construction," So, how about a timetable for rollout? Who will get services and when? How about a timetable for the calling and awarding of tenders for construction, for supply of key electronic and optical equipment? How about some details as to how service providers will interconnect to the network, and where? We have this network to be built by a joint venture one half of which does not yet have a proper board and executive, only interim appointees. We have a plan for an overarching adviser on the Australia-Wide NBN who has yet to be appointed. Yet we are assured by communications minister Stephen Conroy, that "The Tasmania network is being designed to ensure it interconnects seamlessly with the NBN on the mainland." Maybe the Government has this all worked out but the industry sees significant challenges, and certainly is not privy to what the government is planning. In Comms Alliance's first discussion paper on the NBN, author Gary McLaren wrote: "A dialogue on the role of passive, active and resaleable wholesale services is important in the Australian context given the NBN framework announced by the Government...The timing for this dialogue should be expedited given the announced trials of FTTP networks in Tasmania..." In the second paper, written after two forums on the NBN, McLaren made it clear that there had been no progress in this direction: "Although no participants at the NBN Industry Connection forums were able to comment directly on the projects being undertaken in Tasmania, it was felt that everyone would benefit from early work to clarify and resolve issues related to the early deployment of FTTP technologies and services as has been publicly announced." Rather than the opening of Basslink being an opportunity to talk up real progress on the Tasmanian NBN it looks much more like a high profile embarrassment that has thrown the spotlight on the lack of any such progress, obliging the various players to concoct something; and the best they have been able to come up with is the posting of the RFP for the supply of optical fibre.
This article first appeared in ExchangeDaily, iTWire's daily newsletter for telecommunications professionals. Register here for your free trial.
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