Opel pays $65m for Wimax spectrum

JOINT-venture regional broadband provider OPEL has shelled out US$65 million to acquire Austar’s 2.3GHz and 3.5GHz spectrum to set up its national WiMAX voice and internet service.

OPEL is the joint-venture company between Optus and Elders which won $958 million in Federal funding last year to assist the construction on a broadband network covering rural and regional Australia.

Access to the Austar licensed spectrum will allow the OPEL Venturers to build a state-of-the-art WiMAX network which will keep pace with the developments in international standards.

The OPEL network will ensure that regional Australians have access to a broad range of world's best broadband access technologies including WiMAX and ADSL2+.

The OPEL venture has been incredibly quiet since it was awarded the Federal funding last year. Even the $65 million acquisition of critical spectrum from Austar went unannounced (it was left to Austar to trumpet the sale.)

The awarding of the funding has been fraught with controversy and is now the subject of a Federal Court case between Telstra and Government.

The funding had consisted of $600 million Broadband Connect Infrastructure Program funding which the joint venture bid for. But it also included an additional $358 million in additional funding to extend the regional network that Telstra has cried foul over – saying it wasn’t given a chance to bid for the extended network.

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Conroy lashes bush broadband plans

THE only promise Federal plans for broadband in the bush will deliver will be “city-comparable prices” for second rate services, shadow communications minister Stephen Conroy says.

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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