Earlier this month, former National Broadband Network (News - Alert) chief executive Mike Quigley warned his successor not to “rewrite history” in its review of the fiber optic rollout which is currently under debate.
“Don't waste your time being party to a rewriting of the FTTP (fibre-to-the-premises) business case using nonsensical assumptions being made to prove a predetermined outcome,” Quigley said earlier this month. “You can run the risk of building more than Australians want or need in the future, or less than they want or need in the future. That latter risk exists because an FTTN (fibre-to-the-node) network cannot be easily upgraded to FTTP in an NBN environment.”
NBN Co warns that replicating existing analogue services over FttN NBN may not be a "sensible" use of government funding because it is expensive and time consuming. The organization has not conducted any trials of the alternative national broadband network since the change of government, nor has NBN Co received detailed information from Telstra (News - Alert) about its own fiber-to-the-node trial or the condition of its copper network, despite the fiber-to-the-node model relying on copper to deliver broadband to premises.
The Federal Government thus seems to have gone back on its election promise to deliver Internet download speeds of 25 megabits per second to the majority of Australians by 2016.
It has also acknowledged that its broadband scheme will cost $11.5 billion more than it said during the campaign.
Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, says that the plan was the most wasteful infrastructure project in Australian history.
“It was complete and utter madness to embark on this project in the way they did. I'm totally committed to very fast broadband. But if you compare the way other countries, comparable countries, have done it for so much less cost,” said Turnbull in an interview with ABC Australia’s Jake Sturmer.
NBN Co’s new boss, Vodafone (News - Alert) CEO Bill Murrow, will now work on a new statement of expectations and a new corporate plan to be approved before July 1, 2014.
This ordeal is reminiscent of a recent Senate panel discussion in the U.S., where in Michigan, AT&T (News - Alert) is looking to phase out traditional landline service and go to all wireless or voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, mostly because maintaining both traditional and newer systems is cost prohibitive.
The difference here is a state Senate committee has already approved the move, as new legislation has passed that will allow phone companies to discontinue the service to homes so long as some type of newer phone service is offered, such as voice-over IP.
Edited by Blaise McNamee