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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
South Australia's Yorke Peninsula with just 11,780 people spread across 5,834 square kilometres, is known more for its rugged natural beauty than its technological prowess. But now that Internode has brought broadband to the entire peninsula, the area has become a very important part of Australia's telegeography.
If there was ever evidence that the stoush over broadband had gotten personal, it came when Telstra's sour-grapes mentality led it to sue Helen Coonan, personally, for claimed procedural flaws in the OPEL contract.
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.
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?
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.
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