Under current plans, Senator Conroy says that by mid-2009 Australia could have wasted $1 billion of taxpayer funds on a sub-standard, two-tier broadband network.
Writing in The Australian newspaper, Senator Conroy attacked the government’s broadband plans, in particular its awarding $958 million in support to the Optus-Elders bush phone joint-venture.
Communications Minister Helen Coonan had misled regional Australians about the likely speed of the OPEL wireless services, Senator Conroy said, quoting speeds only attainable with optimum conditions and without factoring the vast distances and difficult topographies of some remote areas.
The Wimax solution was an inferior option. Senator Conroy also attacked the Minister over the handling of the Broadband Connect tender won by OPEL. He said only OPEL – and not other bidders like Telstra – had been informed that money beyond the $600 million earmarked for the project could be written into bids.
Labor is proposing spending $4.9 billion on a fibre to the node network that would provide superior speeds to both city and regional customers. He said the FTTN proposal would not only give the bush comparable pricing, but comparable services as well.
“Labor has spent the past five months travelling around Australia talking about broadband. Australians in rural and regional areas know the Government is locking them into a sub-standard, second-class system,” Senator Conroy said.
“Far from abandoning broadband in rural and regional Australia, Labor is committed to turning around the poor quality of telecommunications for all Australians, including those in the bush,” he said.
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