The Coalition has thrown a major spanner in the works of Labor's broadband strategy by locking down the AU$2 billion fund that Labour was going to use to finance its fibre-to-the-node network.
Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy will be introducing legislation in Parliament today to ensure that Australia's big telecommunications players hand over information about their infrastructure to the Labor government ahead of its planned national FTTN rollout.
A potential deadline for national broadband network proposals has emerged, with acting Communications Minister Anthony Albanese today releasing a final document detailing the network information carriers have to disclose in order for bids to be submitted.
With legislation obliging telcos to share their network infrastructure details passed by the House of Representatives last night, it has been revealed that the government may compensate carriers for sharing their intellectual property.
The government's bill to force Telstra to disclose its network information to rival companies so they can effectively tender for the national fibre-to-the-node broadband network was passed by the Senate yesterday.
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.
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.
Might I suggest that the government, which so far has handled the issue with kid gloves, take a chance for once and reach over and just pull the digital TV plug?
Fair is not what the National Broadband Network tender is about; it's bloodsport, and a fight for survival, and a challenge of the wills, and all the other sorts of superlatives you might expect from an Olympics announcer.
With all the excitement over the iPhone, few people have noticed that 1 July was the 11th anniversary of the deregulation of Australia's telecommunications market.
The Australian Labor Party's ICT shadow minister wants a national fibre broadband network and enough skilled people to exploit it.
History of British PCs
The cash-strapped UK National Museum of Computing is home to an exhibition of the evolution of British PCs.… Watch it now
In this exclusive video interview, Optus chief information officer Lawrie Turner speaks to ZDNet.com.au about being the IT head for Australia's number two telco.
Driving Business Growth Through Enterprise IT Management
High availability computing with reliable blade technology
Telstra's BT coat doesn't fit
Australian security: the lucky country 
Storage infrastructure on the tender track
Driving Business Growth Through Enterprise IT Management
Dig deeper by clicking here »
Achieve continuous availability with high performance NonStop blade technology
Security superguide
When chief information officers and other technology managers talk about their priorities, security is always high on the list.
Click here for more.
Superguide: Printers -- all you need to know
Looking to buy a printer? Our superguide rates the latest printers and shines a light into the industry.
Click here for more.
Storage and server superguide
Over the last decade the art of maintaining the datacentre of a large organisation has evolved into an art form.
Click here for more.
