Australia’s new government created national broadband company, NBN Co, has signed its 4000th customer, and while the company’s own internal projections had user numbers around ten times larger, the fact a government program hasn’t as yet lived up to its own projected milestones is a fact of life these days.

In news that will be music to the ears of staunch NBN opponent and fibre to the node advocate, shadow communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, Huawei claims to have developed technology that deliver 1Gbps over a distance of 100 metres of copper telephone lines.

Chinese vendors will continue to dominate the FTTx market, according to a leading analyst firm.

UK based consultancy Analysys Mason has lobbed another hand grenade into the NBN camp, telling telcos that they should reconsider costly plans for fibre to the home (FTTH) and focus on copper-based technologies such as FTTN combined with VDSL.

Telecom New Zealand will today submit its response to the NZ Government's invitation to participate in providing ultra-fast broadband (UFB) for New Zealand: the equivalent of Australia's National Broadband Network.

The New Zealand Government has kicked off the partner selection process for its $NZ1.5 billion ultra-fast broadband network initiative with the release of an invitation to participate in the provision of partially Government funded FTTP networks that will serve around 75 percent of the population.

Communications minister Stephen Conroy has announced the formation of a stakeholder reference group to advise on fibre-to-the-premises broadband rollouts in greenfields property estates. Curiously his announcement makes no mention of his plans to mandate FTTH rollouts in greenfields by mid 2010, and the related page on the DBCDE web site has been amended to remove any reference to such a plan.

The Shadow Minister for Broadband and Comms, Senator Nick Minchin, has yet again blasted the Federal Government over its claims following the announcement that the $4.7B NBN would be turning into a $43B NBN, saying that some members of the NBN Panel have admitted never giving any advice to the Government on investing in a “fibre to the home” network.

On the day of the $43 billion National Broadband Network announcement last week, NZ Telecom-owned service provider AAPT joined the chorus of plaudits. The next day AAPT's CEO was on national TV slamming the NBN  and FTTH as economically unviable. Are the AAPT views concerning the NBN valid or is it just another can't do telco?

Just two weeks to the day after attacking the federal government for overlooking the ICT industry as a critical source of economic stimulus and growth for Australia’s economy, the ACS has joined the chorus of those welcoming the government’s NBN decision but with a cautionary reminder that it’s by no means all of what’s needed to kick along Australia’s digital economy.