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.
Optus believes that Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's decision to scrap plans for an AU$1 billion WiMax network, set to be built by Optus-Elders (OPEL), was "flawed" and the telco has left the door open for legal action.
Labor has said it is prepared to work with the government's existing WiMax plans if it wins the next election -- but the party's shadow Communications Minister is getting the knives out for the Coalition's expert taskforce on fibre-to-the-node.
Telstra has decided to continue fighting its legal battle with the Federal government over the granting of a $958 million rural broadband contract to the Opel consortium.
Communications Minister Helen Coonan has accused her Labor counterpart of releasing "doctored" maps of broadband coverage in Tasmania, which show the government's planned WiMax network only delivering half the coverage promised by the Coalition.
Say what you will about Senator Stephen Conroy, but he is clearly not a man afraid of confrontation. Well, he'd better not be, because by killing off the OPEL WiMax project he has just set himself up for a battle with Telstra of Biblical proportions or a big meal of crow washed down with a $4.7 billion gift to SingTel Optus.
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).
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.
Bill Murray's weeks spent in the purgatory of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania -- depicted in the amusing movie Groundhog Day -- have become a cultural sounding point, mentioned in passing to describe a situation where someone is stuck in the same painful, unresolvable situation day after day.
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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