Coalition policy 'œa blast from the past', says Conroy

Renai LeMay
Tuesday, 10 August 2010 14:45

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Both the Labor and Greens parties this afternoon opened fire on the Coalition's rival broadband policy revealed this morning, in an ICT sector election debate that at times saw Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and his shadow Tony Smith at each others' throats.

The Coalition this morning unveiled its $6 billion rival broadband policy to Labor's National Broadband Network project, with the central planks being a competitive backhaul network, regional and metropolitan wireless networks and an ADSL enrichment program that will target telephone exchanges without ADSL2+ broadband.

Speaking in a televised ICT sector debate in Canberra held by the Australian Computer Society, Conroy described the policy as 'a blast from the past' '” the previous Coalition government had also targeted a wireless rollout through its doomed OPEL plan.

The Coalition plan also appears to rely heavily on the HFC networks built by Telstra and Optus over the past decade to provide high-speed services comparable to the NBN.

But Conroy told the audience at the debate that services planned under the NBN such as videoconferencing and tele-health could not be delivered through the HFC networks '” which share a certain amount of bandwidth between users.