The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
Shadow Minister Billson urged the Federal Communications Minister, Senator Conroy, to: “get on with it, or get out of the way of commercially viable, next generation broadband network investment, that the private sector is ready to make today. These investments have been frozen until the results of the Rudd Government’s clumsy intervention in this dynamic sector are known.”
Billson then talked up the previous Government’s attempt at a last ditch broadband network for rural and regional Australians, called OPEL, which “included carefully targeted taxpayer funding for underserved areas.”
However Billson decried the Government’s actions, saying that it had “pulled the rug out from under OPEL and at the same time has bumped out ready-to-go private sector investment; both of which would be delivering real broadband benefits long before the fog even clears from Labor’s approach.”
Billson then states that: “This ‘plan’ has been plagued by time-line overruns, regulatory confusion and estimates of project cost blow-outs from $8 billion to $25 billion, all before it even reaches the starters’ gates”, and noted that a network builder was meant to have been selected by the end of June 2008.
Billson’s next criticism is that the proposals process will not begin until the end of 2008 as Senator Conroy has indicated, although given the expense, complexity and difficult political waters the Government has to traverse in choosing the right network builder, be it Telstra, Terria or some other consortium, spending a bit of extra time to get it right doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
Bill then ends with: “Today we learn that Senator Conroy is finally going to use legislative powers obtained only with the cooperation of the Opposition back on 15 May, to require telecommunications carriers to provide information in relation to existing broadband network infrastructure, so proponents can shape and cost their bids. Why has it taken so long?”
Well, noting again that I am not a supporter of any particular political party, I can only ask the Federal Opposition why it did not seize the opportunity to take real action why they held the reins of power?
It is so easy to snipe from the opposition benches and is utterly predictable. But either way, I still fear that whatever the outcome of the network builder, it will end up being too slow and too expensive for most Australians, which will be the worst outcome of all.
I can only appeal to a higher power than the political: Dear God, please help us, and do not let that happen!
If only it was so easy to guarantee the best outcome for Australians.
David Bass
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