The cost of connecting to Australia's forthcoming WiMax bush broadband will not be as expensive as some have suggested, according to OPEL, a joint venture between Elders and Optus, the company building the network.
The federal government has cancelled the contract for Optus and Elders to build a WiMAX broadband network, the companies say.
An overlap between the OPEL network and existing wireless networks need not be a bad thing, according to analyst house Market Clarity.
Elders this week announced it would make 80 per cent of its telecommunications staff redundant as it closed its internet service provider division.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Hopefully, you've been spending your end-of-year break better than the executives at Optus, who seem to have taken advantage of the annual industry-wide lull to get onetime WiMax aspirant Austar United Telecommunications to the negotiating table.
WiMax, the controversial long range wireless broadband technology, is set to spread across rural Australia from next year -- but despite the outgoing Howard government's ambitious project, both fixed and mobile variants of the technology are already being deployed around the world.
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?
Telstra's bombastic public policy chief Phil Burgess has peppered the Australian public with vitriolic and memorable quotes since his ascension to the role in July 2005. From whether his mother should buy Telstra shares to Darryl Kerrigan in the castle, Dr Phil had it all. We've collated some of the best.
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?
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