[LINK] NBN report to release today

[Jan Whitaker]

Hope for boost to network roll-out

http://www.theage.com.au/national/hope-for-boost-to-network-rollout-20100505-uapd.html


ARI SHARP

May 6, 2010

THE federal government is hoping today's release of a long-awaited 
study on the national broadband network will give the project 
momentum and quell critics who say it risks being a waste of government funds.

The $25 million implementation study by McKinsey and KPMG was 
intended to provide the government and its wholly owned company NBN 
Co with a guide to the introduction of the network, intended to 
provide 90 per cent of homes and businesses with a connection speed 
of 100 megabits a second.

The report, which runs to more than 500 pages and contains 84 
recommendations, was commissioned on the basis that NBN Co would be a 
stand-alone company, without the involvement of Telstra. The telco 
giant has been in discussions with the government over selling its 
fixed-line assets to NBN Co, but no deal has been reached.

Failing to strike a deal with Telstra is expected to make the 
roll-out more costly and will force NBN Co to compete with the 
company, but the government is expected to use the report to show the 
project is viable regardless.

''I think that people will find there are some very surprising and 
very positive recommendations coming forward,'' Communications 
Minister Stephen Conroy said in March.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has described the broadband network as the 
single largest infrastructure project in Australia's history. The 
opposition has pledged to halt the roll-out of the network if elected 
to office later this year, instead encouraging telcos to use their 
existing hybrid fibre-coaxial network to provide faster speeds.



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

_ __________________ _