[LINK] Tasmanians to be forced to connect to NBN under new laws

[Paul Brooks]

  On 8/10/2010 1:21 PM, Stilgherrian wrote:
>
> I agree with what you say here about needing permission to enter land and "do stuff" to your building. My point was that under the planned laws you could still sign the opt-out form and prevent any NBN Co access.
Certainly this is so. My preference is still to keep the system opt-in, and if they 
want to artificially inflate the connection statistics they should provide a 
reasonable incentive for people to tick the right part of the form. 'Connect now and 
it will be free, connect later and it will be at least $300' should see a better 
return-rate.

> My latter point about there being no difference from being forced to use the Telstra copper now or NBN Co fibre in the future was part of a rebuttal to Malcolm Turnbull's comment:
>
>      "If Australian consumers want a fixed line for telephony or internet
>      access, they are going to have to use NBN’s line – like it or not."
>      http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/tasmania-decision-confirms-nbn-business-risk/
>
> My point was that the service, in this case a fixed voice service, being "forced" to use the available CAN is just a matter of being "forced" to use the provided infrastructure. Hmmm... that's not that clear either. Maybe I need to say that it's no different from getting water laid on and being "forced" to use the pipes in the street.
Its more that the copper line will still be there, and will still be available for 
people to order a telephone service on if they choose, for quite a while yet. Telstra 
won't be stopping service through their CAN until after the non-binding 
heads-of-agreement is fleshed out, agreed, approved, and signed, sometime around the 
end of next year at the absolute earliest. Turnbulls statement amounts to FUD 
suggesting that, because the cable is connected, all services will be forced to be 
moved to the new cable immediately, which is of course false.

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