What's wrong with the NBN is there's still No Bloody Network

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 11 April 2011 22:44

Opinion and Analysis

After two years, NBN construction should have been well underway, but instead, we have Opel cancelled, tenderers labelled as price gougers, NBN Co resignations, no clear and affordable NBN path and still no NBN - where the bloody hell are you?

When the Federal Government said the NBN would be years in the making, they definitely weren't kidding.

Although there are some trial sites to go live soon, along with bits of Tassie NBN-enabled, the rest of Australia is still effectively an NBN-free zone, filled with the promise of the Nirvana Broadband Network'¦ sometime kinda sorta years-away soon.

At an undetermined cost that we can only hope remains in the range of tens of billions, instead of slipping into the hundreds, the NBN is the Sydney Harbour Broadband Bridge for the entire nation, the Snowy Mountains scheme delivering broadband pipes to virtually every premises, public and private, in the nation.

Come hell, cyclone, landslide, drought, flooding plains and high water, the current government is determined it will be built, and once built, great things will come forth through users finding ever more innovative ways to take advantage of the blisteringly ultimate hyperfast fibre turbo boost extreme speeds that an 'up to 1Gbps' network can deliver.

Competitive networks will be eliminated through being decommissioned or anti-competitively hobbled to ensure the NBN can be profitable and ensure a uniform price across the country.

That means competition from those who retail NBN's wholesale service, but it means little competition from networks that are NBN-esque or NBN-class competitors.

That's the system the federal government is setting up. So far, it's mostly not here, and despite the federal government getting its legislation passed, the recent hiccups are very embarrassing.

Hopefully NBN Co and the federal government will get its act together soon and get back to constructing the NBN as quickly as possible and at a competitive price.

Otherwise not much more might have happened by the time of the next federal election.

Should there be a change of government, a national fibre backbone will likely be constructed as promised last time, with a combination of networking technologies forming Australia's mix for the future.

The NBN conundrum continue drumming to a different beat on page two, please read on!