Government claims 38 percent shortfall in Opel wireless coverage

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 02 April 2008 11:27

Opinion and Analysis

The Federal Government has found a loophole that has enabled it to extricate itself from the much maligned deal under which the previous Coalition Government commited almost $1 billion to the Optus - Elders joint venture in return for the provision of broadband services to huge areas of regional and rural Australia, but the means by which it has done this seem highly questionable.

The Government said that that Opel has "failed to meet the terms of a contract made with the previous Government...A condition precedent of the contract stated that Opel would provide coverage reasonably equivalent to 90 percent of under-served premises identified by the then Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts as being within its coverage area."

According to communications minister, Stephen Conroy,  "A precondition of the funding agreement was that Opel undertake testing and mapping to substantiate the service coverage set out in its proposal." Hhis department: "performed an analysis of the detailed testing and mapping undertaken by Opel, and determined that the Opel network would cover only 72 percent of identified under-served premises."

So how did the department come to this conclusion? "Opel's testing was verified by the Australian Communications and Media Authority and Enex TestLab."  And who, I hear you ask is Enex? According to its web site "Enex TestLab was founded in 1989, originally as part of RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, and has now grown into a commercial testing facility unparalleled anywhere in the world."

Well that sounds impressive, but the trouble is nowhere on its website http://www.testlab.com.au does Enex claim expertise in field testing or modelling the coverage of wide area wireless networks.

I asked a highly regarded wireless networks consultant how the government might have undertaken modelling and testing to conclude with reasonable confidence that performance of the proposed Opel network would fall so far short of what was claimed. He doubted that it could have done so. And any such testing would have to have been done with the rigour and certainty that would withstand a possible legal challenge from Opel. After all we are talking about $1 billion here and around $16 million in opex and capex that Optus claims to have spent to date, and a similar amount from joint venture partner Elders. CONTINUED