Opel broadband proposal: more holes than Jarlsberg cheese

Stuart Corner
Monday, 25 June 2007 18:18

Opinion and Analysis

As industry digests and analyses what little detail of the Opel Broadband Connect proposal has emerged it begins to look increasingly like a hastily developed plan, and some sources say that, in the case of claimed wireless coverage the 'holes' are very real.

The biggest hole to appear so far has been revealed by Tasmania's finance minister, Michael Aird. The Opel proposal, according to information released by the Federal Government, is proposing two new optic fibre links to Tasmania: one a completely new cable and one making use of fibre laid with the Basslink power cable.

There is just one small problem: the Tasmanian Government has the exclusive right to connect to this link and intends to assign that right to the successful bidder for a strategic communications partner, the RFT for which was issued last year.

However, as Aird revealed this week, Opel has no guarantee of winning that business. He said "Senator Coonan's media release indicates that access to the Basslink optic fibre cable has been granted to the Optus-Elders, or Opel, consortium. Our process is still in its final stages and access to the Connect Tasmania Core, which includes Basslink, has not been awarded to any respondent."

Aird also took issue with what he said was Tasmania's exclusion from the FTTN project and said that he would be asking Senator Coonan "to confirm that Tasmania would be part of the Australian Government's FTTN proposal."