The Northern Territory government has bitterly complained about a lack of competition in the telecommunications market that it claims has led to it paying Telstra three to five times more for some communications services than the rest of the nation.
Labor Communications spokesperson Stephen Conroy has restated the Opposition's commitment to a pan-Australian fibre-to-the-node network, while accusing the government of wasting taxpayers' money with a planned WiMax rollout
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.
The federal government's rural broadband plan is just a "spoiler", Labor frontbencher Simon Crean said today.
Communications Minister Helen Coonan fought back today against attacks on the government's WiMax and fibre to the node plans, saying that opponents had sought to cloud the broadband debate.
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.
With the OPEL bid cancelled and procedural questions dogging the FTTN bid, Australia is currently in something of a technological limbo.
Much has been made of Telstra's decision to finally stop holding Australia to ransom, and to actually turn on the ADSL2+ equipment it has installed in what is apparently over 900 of its exchanges around the country.
If there ever were concrete evidence that Labor is blowing smoke up the proverbials of the Australian population, it came earlier this month as Senator Stephen Conroy, the man charged with promoting Labor's fibre-everywhere policy while simultaneously taking potshots at his counterpart Senator Helen Coonan, put his foot squarely in his mouth.
As Christmas roars in upon us and the Rudds, Trujillos, and Conroys of the world hang their Christmas stockings, everybody is casting an eye to 2008 and the changes it will bring.
A remarkable four-car pile-up is about to happen with the National Broadband Network; goodness knows what will emerge from the wreckage. Maybe there'll be no survivors at all.
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Has New Zealand's smiling assassin delivered?
The long-awaited separation of Telstra
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