We’ll proceed without Telstra: Tanner

THE Rudd Government was unfazed by Telstra blunt rejection of plans to build a national broadband network based on joint public-private funding and ownership.

Newly sworn-in Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has told ABC Television the Labor Government would proceed with the $4.7 billion plan for the national network with or without Telstra.

And the Government’s new Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, said Labor remained committed to building a national fibre-to-the-node network.

Senator Conroy said government hoped to complete the tender process to select partners to build the network by the middle of next year.

“It will be open access, promote competition and put downward pressure on consumer prices,” Senator Conroy said. “We will hold an open and transparent process to determine who will build the network with our ambition being to complete the process by the end of June next year,”

“We expect that there will be much public commentary, jockeying and lobbying from parties as they work to convince the Government that they are best placed to build the new network and seek the terms that are most favourable to them.”

Labor promised in March that it would contribute $4.7 billion in public money toward a public-private national “open access’’ network. Government will issue tenders next year seeking proposals from the private sector to build the network.

But Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo last week last week rejected the plan, saying the company would only participate in projects that “we own and control.”

Mr Tanner said the Government’s plans were not contingent on Telstra taking part.

“The policy we put forward some months ago is a position that still stands. We are going to proceed,” Mr Tanner said.

“It is Telstra’s choice as to what role they want to play or not,” he said.

Government would wait until seen private sector proposals as part of the tender process before deciding how to structure the network.

Mr Tanner said the policy had been kept as flexible as possible so that the private sector could develop new ideas for implementing a cost effective and technologically efficient network.

“We are going to proceed with the position that we put to the Australian people,” Mr Tanner told the ABC Inside Business program.

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Election year jitters as Telstra cranks Next G

JUST days after announcing surging profits from wireless data traffic, Telstra has cranked up speeds on its Next G third generation mobile network from 3.6Mbps to 14.4Mbps.

In addition to quadrupling the Next G data transfer rates, the company also announced plans to extend the effective range of Next G cells in regional centres from 50 kilometres to 200 kilometres.

Telstra says the improved geographic range of the Next G cells will ultimately provide network coverage to 98.8 per cent of the Australian population.

The company said the extended cell coverage made the Next G system the first in the world to switch on the 200 kilometre-range cells.

Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo said more than 400,000 subscribers had signed up to Next G since the third generation network went live last October.

Politically, the company needs its world-first 200 kilometre cell technology to succeed.

Telstra has already said it will switch off its ageing CDMA network – which is the only mobile system available to many rural and regional Australians – in January next year.

It has also promised its Next G network would provide the same or better coverage before the CDMA network is turned off. The Nationals in Canberra – NSW Senator Fiona Nash and Queensland Senator Barnaby Joyce – intend on making sure Telstra keeps that promise.

Regardless of Telstra’s majority-private ownership, in an election year mobile coverage in the bush is an issue the Nationals are prepared to die in a ditch over.

Mr Trujillo used the weekend Next G upgrade announcement to talk up the coverage issue.

“This is a major leap from the 50 kilometre range that was typically supported on our Next G network, and is an important step towards equaling, and in some cases exceeding existing CDMA coverage,” Mr Trujillo said.

Briefing analysts in Sydney last week, Mr Trujillo said Telstra had topped one million 3G mobile subscribers, with a total of 415,000 Next G customers – and that the average revenue per user for these 3G users was $20 per month higher than 2G customers.

The improved multimedia capabilities of the Next G network was changing the way customers used their phones and further driving data traffic, Mr Trujillo said.
“Our Next G customers are using their devices differently to drive dramatic change in usage patterns, migrating from basic voice to content-rich applications,” he said.

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