The federal government has cancelled the contract for Optus and Elders to build a WiMAX broadband network, the companies say.
Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo announced this morning that the company has lodged its AU$5 million tender bond for the national fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) network.
A high level Telstra executive has labelled other potential bidders for the proposed FTTN network as "pretenders" after it was revealed the telco suggested to the government that it attach a multi-million dollar application fee and bond to all its network tender requests.
Telstra's plans to switch on ADSL2+ across 900 exchanges throughout the country may have a substantial destabilising effect on the communications market, and alter the national carriers relationship with government and regulators, according to a report.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has called for tenders to build the $250 million backhaul telecommunications links, which target six regional centres in all states and territories except Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.
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.
Australian telecoms is increasingly resembling the US during Prohibition, with Telstra as Al Capone and the ACCC as Eliot Ness.
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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The long-awaited separation of Telstra
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