Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy has issued a new set of guidelines for ISPs servicing rural and regional Australia, on the back of the Federal government's decision to extend the Australian Broadband Guarantee as part of last Tuesday's budget.
In preparation for its fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) rollout, the Federal Labor government is resuming its campaign to change legislation to allow it to access the AU$2 billion regional and rural Communications Fund, which the government claims is needed to bankroll part of the network's construction.
After Bruce Billson, Opposition spokesperson for Communications, claimed yesterday that the federal government is planning on cutting subsidies to rural and regional broadband providers, a number of industry sources have cast doubt on whether the policy axe has been raised over the Australian Broadband Guarantee.
The Labor government has kept quiet about the previous administration's Australian Broadband Guarantee as it prepares to axe the initiative in order to concentrate on the national FTTN rollout, according to Shadow Communications spokesperson, Bruce Billson.
Bruce Billson, the Liberal communications spokesperson, has taken aim at Labor's plans to draw on money from the previous government's communications fund to build its fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) network.
Just a few days after the Australia Connected program was launched Communications Minister Helen Coonan was selling the initiative to the TV talk shows.
The government's Australia Connected program, it appears, is no longer an altruistic and long-overdue investment in Australia's infrastructure, but a political football whose primary purpose seems to be to send a massive "nyah-nyah" to the Labor party.
Telstra's decision to upgrade its cable definitely now means that the National Broadband Network won't get built. This policy has ceased to be, it rests in peace. This is an ex-policy.
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.
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?
iiNet and Telstra seem to be at loggerheads but the real culprit, according to the telco giant, is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
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