Part of the government's National Broadband Network plan, the $250 million injection to create new backhaul links in regional areas, could start construction by September this year.
Internet service providers (ISP), mobile telcos, and bidders for the $250 million regional backhaul build have welcomed the launch of the initiative, but questions remain over whether the plan will deliver competition.
Problems have surfaced with the financing behind Pipe Networks' plan to lay fibre-optic cable on the bottom of the ocean from Sydney to Guam.
Telstra has warned using National Broadband Network funding to provide alternatives to its own rural infrastructure may lead to increased costs and other problems.
The government has committed to spending $53.2 million on its implementation study for the National Broadband Network.
Rural areas will be welcoming the government's decision to put its money where its politicising is, funnelling $250m into a regional fibre upgrade to six rural centres. Remedying over a decade of near-neglect at the hands of telecoms privatisation, the investment could be the firmest step yet for Labor's NBN dream but with inevitable political questions and a looming election, Rudd and Conroy need to deliver, and quickly, to preserve the NBN's credibility.
Faced with a renewed threat in newly-appointed Tony Abbott and unknown-quantity communications portfolio ankle-biter Tony Smith, Stephen Conroy responded this week in the way any politician would: he gave lots, and lots, and lots of speeches.
The government dumped its well-intentioned bidders and spent the day awash in adulation from an industry that suddenly felt all its Christmases had come at once. But isn't this the same government that, two weeks ago, was warning it had to ditch key election promises for lack of funding?
The Rudd Government's decision to build its own broadband network significantly cranks up the threat to Telstra's dominance in the telecommunications sector.
Yes, says iiNet, and the telco giant's price chains are keeping smaller players from venturing down the rural broadband route.
Reading Telstra's submission to the government on NBN regulation is a bit like reading a combination of Dicken's David Copperfield, specifically the simpering character known as Uriah Heep, and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
Australia's third-largest telecommunications company, AAPT, has been left at the altar so many times that there is understandable scepticism that it will tie the knot in 2009.
The merger of Vodafone and Hutchison will create a strong mobile competitor ... but the ACCC's Graeme Samuel would be well advised to keep a close eye on what the deal will mean for business and consumers.
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