Competition watchdog the ACCC has rejected a draft proposal by the Optus-led G9 consortium on building Australia's fibre-to-the-node network, despite giving the plan a cautious thumbs-up.
The G9 consortium has announced its transformation into a new entity named Terria, ahead of lodging its AU$5 million bond with the government to bid on the national fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) network.
The heated debate over who will build a countrywide fibre-to-the-node broadband network has been raging for some 18 months, with Telstra battling the ACCC, the government and the rival Optus-led G9 consortium. There are few signs the battle will end soon, but here is what has happened so far.
Eleven of Australia's second-tier telcos and Internet service providers have banded together to fight against what they describe as a "campaign of misinformation" by Telstra on the subject of telecommunications regulation.
The nation's largest telcos, Telstra and Optus, have welcomed the Australian Labor Party's election promise to facilitate a new national fibre broadband network with up to AU$4.7 billion in funding, and key telecommunications reforms.
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.
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