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.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is shortly expected to announce during a trip to Darwin what areas of regional Australia will be targeted by the backhaul aspect of the government's National Broadband Network plans.
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.
The long-awaited Basslink fibre cable, which will end Telstra's monopoly over the Bass Strait between Tasmania and the mainland, will start carrying customer traffic by 30 June, the cable's operator said today.
The Western Australian Government has named a backhaul telecommunications link between Perth and Geraldton as its top priority in negotiations with the Federal Government on the $43 billion National Broadband Network.
Why the National Broadband Network should be free, and other stories from another day of the Senate Select Committee on the Rudd Government's telco infrastructure baby.
May fever has hit New Zealand's mobile carriers. Telecom New Zealand and Vodafone both have big initiatives under way ... and is that three? NZ Communications (formerly Econet) kicks off a third competitive network to give the big guns nightmares.
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?
Will the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee's report linger as simply yet another ineffectual review guiding limp and ineffectual efforts to improve regional services?
Yes, says iiNet, and the telco giant's price chains are keeping smaller players from venturing down the rural broadband route.
Mike Quigley and Doug Campbell's long-standing relationships with Telstra and few of its rivals will lead Australia's telecommunications industry to question privately whether Telstra will receive a phenomenal level of access to the NBN decision-making processes.
The Rudd Government's decision to build its own broadband network significantly cranks up the threat to Telstra's dominance in the telecommunications sector.
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.
In his role as Telstra's chief executive, Sol Trujillo is the most talked about and controversial telecommunications executive in Australia. ZDNet.com.au sister site CNET News.com sat down with Trujillo during a recent trip to the US to quiz him about wireless and handsets.
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