It’s time Abbott cut this socialist knot The following appeared in today’s Australian newspaper LIBERALS SHOULD LOG OUT OF NBN This costly dud will cause no end of trouble By Malcolm Colless I see from recent media reports that the push is on to speed up the rollout of the disaster prone National Broadband Network by stringing its fibre cable from power poles rather than burying it in old Telstra trenches. I noted this as I looked at the ugly ,thick ,grey cable that snakes its way down my street in the Sydney suburb of Mosman suspended between the power poles before it finally crosses over to my house where it delivers nothing. This is a relic of a brief and unsuccessful attempt by Optus Interactive Television to deliver a two-way multi-media service to residents across Sydney about 10 years ago. The service has long gone but the cable lingers on with no suggestion that it is going to come down any time soon. Above ground cabling is easier and cheaper to instal and more convenient to repair than the underground alternative.It was a key but understated part of the Rudd Government’s original concept for its own superfast broadband information highway. It was a core consideration in the early days of paytv in Australia, particularly when Optus was planning to be a major player. But it was quickly sidelined by Foxtel’s use of Telstra’s underground telephone ducting system and then by satellite. While there may be economic benefits in rolling out cable above ground it is , to say the least ,unsightly. You only have to walk through the back streets of Saigon city to get an idea about how ugly this can become. Anyway the real issue here is not whether a Government owned instrumentality is rolling out fibre above or below ground but why it is doing so at all. In other words why does NBN Co exist? It is a back to the future concept dreamed up by former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd and his then Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, in 2009 to reinvent the wheel. Their plan was to return control of the country’s communications network to a Labor administration- forcing Telstra to decommission its copper cabling system to be replaced by Government owned fibre. This exercise in no expense spared social engineering was dressed up as an altruistic move by a paternal government to do what the private sector could not, and along the way to take Australia to the cutting edge of world technology advances. But governments are notoriously hopeless at second guessing technology paths and the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd administration was no exception when it came to the NBN. But while this floundered at almost every turn the British multinational group BT, a former Government owned telecommunications body, was ploughing ahead with a fibre rollout across the UK through what is called operation Openreach. So far this has reached more than 14 million homes and is scheduled to be completed next year 18 months ahead of time. Bristish Prime Minister, David Cameron, has backed the plan to extend the fibre network to virtually the whole of the country with the last five per cent to remote areas being the most costly. NBN co-chairman Ziggy Switkowski-a former chief executive of both Optus and Telstra- is currently wading through a 300-plus page secret report handed to the Gillard Government three years ago from the investment bank Lazard which forecast a multi-billion dollar cost blow out in the NBN project. A strategic audit being prepared by Dr Switkowski and which will be delivered to Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull next month, will significantly influence the coalition’s policy on the future of the NBN. But apart from stating that he favours fibre to the curb rather than Labor’s fibre to the home rollout Mr Turnbull has still left open the prospect that the Government will own the network. Why? ENDS
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 23:47:16 +0000
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