[LINK] conroy quizzing former dept leaders on NBN

[Jan Whitaker]

[Funny how this is turning out, sort of. I'm not 
a Conroy fan on many things, but the NBN was one 
thing he had going for him. Can't wait until 
Ziggy has to front up. Note: for once this is in 
the Politics section instead of the IT section.]

Coalition's slower NBN will 'make less money'
Jonathan Swan
Published: November 28, 2013 - 1:14PM

The Abbott government expects to make less money 
from the NBN because of slower speeds available 
under the Coalition's copper-based network, a Senate committee has heard.

Facing aggressive questioning from former 
communications minister Stephen Conroy, 
government officials admitted that the company 
building the NBN would have to lower its revenue 
forecasts, partly because of the cheaper, but 
inferior, technology preferred by the Coalition.

There are at least three reasons why the NBN Co 
expects to make less money from customers on the 
Coalition's network – which is expected to be 
about $17 billion cheaper to build than the previous Labor government's NBN.

First, businesses and families will not be able 
to buy the highest speed plans offered under 
Labor's NBN, which involved running fibre cabling 
to 93 per cent of homes around Australia.

The Coalition's alternative NBN, which piggybacks 
on copper telephone wires for about 70 per cent 
of households, could not offer “packages” of 250, 
500 or 1000 megabits per second, government officials said on Thursday.

Second, it is likely Australians will download 
and upload less data across the Coalition's 
slower NBN, which would lower revenue forecasts.

And third, while Labor's NBN was essentially a 
government-owned monopoly, the Coalition's 
network will face infrastructure competition from 
telecoms companies offering other technologies 
such as HFC (hybrid fibre-coaxial).

Senator Conroy, now the shadow defence minister, 
was revelling in his new opposition role. He 
aggressively questioned the government officials 
whom he oversaw for three years as communications minister.

“Be careful,” was a warning that frequently 
prefaced Senator Conroy's questions, which were 
informed by his deep knowledge of the inner 
workings of the Communications Department.

“All three of you must know the answer to this 
question 
 you can't not know this information,” 
Senator Conroy told the three department 
secretaries about a question he asked on the 
products and speeds available under the new NBN.

“Could [the NBN Co] offer a product that it's not 
possible to deliver in fibre to the node?” 
Senator Conroy wondered at another point in 
Thursday's hearings. “Could they offer a product 
that it's actually not technically feasible to offer?”

Senator Conroy pulled up a PowerPoint 
presentation to give the department officials a 
quick lesson on how much data Australians had 
been using over the past few years.

At another moment in the hearings held at 
Parliament House, Canberra, Senator Conroy 
mouthed “don't” to one of the department 
secretaries, who appeared to be dodging a 
question about the technical limits of copper wiring.

This story was found at: 
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/coalitions-slower-nbn--will-make-less-money-20131128-2ybre.html 



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, 
you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space 
between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space.
~Margaret Atwood, writer

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