Stephen Withers
Monday, 15 December 2008 10:38
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 3
Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy, has explained that Telstra's exclusion from the current National Broadband Network (NBN) request for proposal process was the result of the carrier's failure to meet the mandatory conditions.
The Australian Government has committed up to $4.7 billion in funding for a high-speed broadband network providing speeds of at least 12 Mbps to 98 percent of homes and businesses.
An expert panel has been charged with the task of evaluating the proposals received by the government.
The panel comprises John Wylie (CEO, Lazard Carnegie Wylie), Tony Mitchell (chairman, Allphones), Laureate Professor Rod Tucker (University of Melbourne), Professor Emeritus of Communications Reg Coutts (University of Adelaide), Tony Shaw (former chairman, Australian Communications Authority) and Ken Henry, (Treasury Secretary).
Proposals were received from Acacia, Axia, Optus (on behalf of the Terria consortium), Telstra, TransACT, and the Tasmanian government.
But Telstra fell at the first fence when it was determined that its proposal did not meet with the requirements of the RFP.
Section 10.9 of the RFP document made it clear that organisations submitting proposals were required to "prepare a Plan demonstrating how they will provide full, fair and reasonable opportunity to Australian and New Zealand SMEs to supply goods and services to the NBN Project" and that they "must submit a Plan to be recommended for funding."
That sounds straightforward enough to me - no plan, no funding.
So what's the problem? Please
read on.
