South Australian ISP Internode has set up a WiMax service to provide broadband access to the Yorke Peninsula region west of Adelaide, but not before its new infrastructure was almost built over.
Optus believes that Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's decision to scrap plans for an AU$1 billion WiMax network, set to be built by Optus-Elders (OPEL), was "flawed" and the telco has left the door open for legal action.
The national carrier has said the federal government's decision to cancel the Optus-Elders (OPEL) consortium's rural WiMax network contract was a matter of "common sense", after Communications Minister Stephen Conroy gave indications as late as yesterday that he was still considering the proposal.
Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo announced this morning that the company has lodged its AU$5 million tender bond for the national fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) network.
Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo has slammed the federal government's decision to award funding to Telstra competitor OPEL for a new national broadband network, decrying Australia as a nation that lacks any incentive for investment in telecommunications.
As expected, Senator Stephen Conroy -- who made a career out of picking holes in the actions of his predecessor Helen Coonan -- was named to Kevin Rudd's front bench, bearing the interesting new title of Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (BCDE).
Sprint's WiMAX roll-out in Baltimore will prove the Australian government's decision to worm its way out of the Opel WiMAX contract was a short-sighted, and ultimately damaging, political stunt that has benefited nobody.
For no particular reason that I can discern, a 1979 Kenny Rogers song popped into my head as I was considering the ever more complex morass that is the national broadband network tender which Senator Stephen Conroy defended in his CeBIT keynote speech.
Say what you will about Senator Stephen Conroy, but he is clearly not a man afraid of confrontation. Well, he'd better not be, because by killing off the OPEL WiMax project he has just set himself up for a battle with Telstra of Biblical proportions or a big meal of crow washed down with a $4.7 billion gift to SingTel Optus.
Post-election adrenaline surging through his veins, one of the first acts performed by new Communications Minister Stephen Conroy was to disband the expert panel that his predecessor Helen Coonan had appointed last June to evaluate tenders for fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) construction.
Ahead of the election, with promises for nationwide broadband networks and digital revolutions in schools, the ICT industry could hope the government was on their side. But now the glamour of a sparkling new government has worn off, how ICT-friendly is the Rudd government really?
An analysis by representatives of Australia's two largest IT industry groups shows that neither political party in the federal election has come up with a comprehensive policy around technology.
When the government announced that Optus and Elders had won the bid to build Australia's bush broadband network, it provoked jeers and plaudits alike, but it was the ISPs' choice of WiMax as the bearer technology that has provoked the most furious storm of argument. Just how will the technology stand up to life in the bush?
Conroy ducks, Ballmer evades and Android Fails -- Club Builder
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