Australia’s plan to run fiber-optic cable to 93 percent of the country’s homes and provide minimum 100Mbps speeds (the rest of the country will get 12Mbps, delivered by wireless and next-generation satellite) was always ambitious, says ArsTechnica.
But even its most enthusiastic backers never expected that a national broadband plan would actually determine the country’s next prime minister. But that’s exactly what just happened.
Labor’s National Broadband Network was one of the “major influences” for Tony Windsor’s backing of the Labor Party, the independent MP said yesterday.
Australia broke a two-and-a-half week deadlock resulting from its August 21 national elections. No party won an outright majority, and forming a coalition government proved tricky.
Work can now continue on the $43 billion NBN, which pledges to link 93 per cent of homes to fibre at speeds of up to 1 gigabit a second. It will be the largest single infrastructure investment in Australia’s history. As a wholesale-only network, the NBN will give retail service provider (RSPs) an equivalent opportunity to serve Australia’s digital access needs.
NBN will use either Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) or Ethernet Point to Point fibre and will link some premises by wireless or satellite, depending on location and geography.
The Labor Party and the Greens both saw broadband—specifically fiber optic broadband—as key to the country’s future, and both pledged to support the AU$43 billion decade-long project.
The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) welcomed the announcement of the new Australian government.
But the Australian Telecommunications Users Group said Sydney residents would be the ones who ultimately paid for affordable broadband in regional Australia.
“That’s just a fact of life,” said managing director Rosemary Sinclair.
The task of completing the eight-year build will now take on new direction, as the concessions required to secure the support of the key rural independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor mean broadband-deprived rural areas will be the first to be connected, says The Australian.
Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, will receive $11bn from the government for its now redundant infrastructure. Optus, a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications, has largely abandoned the promotion of cable television delivery, while Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating both cable and direct broadcast satellite television services.
More than 10 international and domestic broadband satellite operators pitched to NBN, but only a handful were considered serious contenders. Optus, the owner and operator of Australia’s largest fleet of broadcast satellites, stands in good stead to claim some of the NBN satellite work, but its current generation of satellites can’t deliver the network speeds mandated by NBN Co. Optus would need to spend millions of dollars to launch the next-generation of KA-band satellites. Hughes Network Systems also formed an Australian subsidiary.
The center-right Liberal Party wanted to gut the entire project, cutting NBN and instead offering some cash to make DSL available to more people. With the hung parliament resulting from Australia’s election, it became clear that the winning coalition would determine the future of the country’s broadband network, says Ars Technica.
