NBN to cost less than $43 billion: Conroy

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 19 May 2009 12:25

Your IT - Home IT

Conroy called upon the words of Robert Menzies, a former Prime Minister from the other side of the political fence.

"When we begin some great national work of this kind, that is by common consent vital to the real industrial development of this country, we must accept some risks," Conroy quoted.
 
"He went on to say: 'We cannot be expected to work out in advance the rate at which we shall some day provide hydro-electricity... We should not start off with rosy ideas about cost factors, we must say to ourselves this is a great national undertaking.'"

"This is the kind of vision that the Rudd Government is applying to broadband."

iTWire reported earlier that the Shadow Minister, Nick Minchin, has claimed that the Government's position was not in fact supported by the NBN advisory panel (which was established to evaluate responses to the RFP for a FTTN network).

Conroy used his speech to the FTTH Council conference to claim support from a range of sources.

"The Panel of Experts that evaluated the proposals put forward encouraged the Government to invest in a FTTP network," he said.

"In addition, the Government has received advice on the technical suitability of FTTP from a range of high-level sources.
 
"The overwhelmingly strong view of this advice was that FTTP is the technically superior broadband solution.

Conroy had more bug guns lined up to support the Government's decision - see page 3.