commentary Forget about Mike Quigley. The man who is really under the gun for delivering the National Broadband Network is former Telstra executive Doug Campbell.
Doug Campbell
(Credit: Telstra)
As chairman of the Tasmanian NBN Company Ltd, Campbell has to deliver a working NBN microcosm by June next year. That's about five years ahead of the timetable for Quigley, who has the luxury of spending nine months with consultants working on the NBN implementation study.
Obviously, as executive chairman of the NBN Co on the mainland, Quigley will have to work closely with Campbell to ensure that whatever is done in Tasmania fits the national vision.
But as the executive in charge, the operational buck stops at Campbell's door. The political buck stops at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has effectively promised to roll-out a wholesale-only broadband network service to 5000 premises in three communities in Tasmania by the second quarter of 2010.
Put to one side the fact that connecting the three communities of Smithton, Scottsdale and Midway Point, is the equivalent of connecting fibre to three branch offices of a medium-sized company in Sydney. The challenge is not in laying the fibre that Rudd was so pleased to be photographed with at the weekend. The critical element is the architecture of the network and making sure that any provider of services — whether it is the federal health department or a gaming company in Melbourne — can get equal access to it.
The tough technical part is figuring out the point of access for all the service providers who will want to sell their services to each of the premises.
Industry experts say Campbell has been given an incredibly aggressive timetable considering that the normal processes for agreeing technical standards in the telecommunications industry takes a minimum of two years. Pushing through agreements on technical standards in a record time frame is one of many challenges facing Campbell.
Some are concerned that Campbell's background as a telco guy means the operating model for the Tasmanian NBN will be shaped by a telco paradigm, whereby the telco owns the customer. Will Campbell follow the typical path of allowing access to the customer to be determined by the highest bidder? What will be the barriers of entry to the Tasmanian NBN? How will he encourage as many services on the network as possible?
When a subscriber turns on their NBN connection will they be offered all services concurrently? Or will the NBN set up only allow a choice of one provider at a time? How will Campbell deal with the issue of internet service providers who have stitched up exclusive content deals for sport or other services?
Will Campbell convince Telstra to switch over customers on their copper network to the NBN? Will existing ISPs in Tasmania be offered access to the NBN at prices that allow plans that are competitive with today's offerings?
Answers to these questions will determine whether the system is completely open or a hybrid model.
One danger is that the pressure of time will force Campbell to make compromises in the short-term that will not be in the longer term interests of the NBN. Campbell is starting with a clean sheet of paper. We know that because the industry has no visibility of what is happening in Tasmania apart from the press releases at the weekend before last.
However, there is confidence that Campbell is up to the task. The former Canadian telco executive has almost 50 years of experience to draw upon, including running the main Canadian carrier in the 1980s.
He needs as much support as possible from Quigley to ensure that decisions in Tasmania don't inhibit the design of the national network.
This article by Business Spectator's Tony Boyd is reproduced on ZDNet.com.au courtesy of a reciprocal publishing agreement.
7%
1%
