No doubt many of you will have heard news regarding the National Broadband Network and may be wondering how it will change the telecommunications market in Australia and, in turn, impact your businesses. To get a good understanding of the basics of the new network we suggest that you take some time to read the government’s brochure (attached) explaining the rationale behind the decision and the basics of how it is anticipated the network will be structured and regulated.
The government’s decision to reject all of the current NBN proposals and set-up a majority government-owned company (funded by a mixture of government and private capital) to roll out the proposed National Broadband Network seems to have taken many by surprise with few industry analysts picking this as a potential solution it seems to have taken the industry a little by surprise.
To say that this decision is a huge undertaking is an understatement. This will be the most ambitious public infrastructure project in Australia’s history requiring some $43 billion of investment to deliver a Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) network to 90% of Australian households and businesses. It will also be the most ambitious FTTP project undertaken anywhere in the world. FTTP technology has been identified as having the capability to deliver download speeds of up to 100Mbps currently and up to 1Gbps in the future, making this one of the most future-proof technologies available for the network.
So much for the history-making and huge investment dollars, what does this mean?
Well, we believe that this decision is great news for consumers and for us in the telecommunications market.
Why?
Because some of the core principles behind the new network are:
- The company that owns and provides the network will do so only on a wholesale basis and will have no retail interests
- The company will not favour one retailer over another, it will treat all its customers equally
- Legislation will ensure that even after the planned sell-off in 5 years time the company owning the network always operates as the government intends
- Legislation will ensure that a customer of the network will not be able to control the network company
- Legislation will ensure that the ACCC maintains an independent oversight into how the new company operates
While it’s far too early to even begin to predict the impact of this in much detail the framework outlined above really should provide a more level playing field in the wholesale telecommunications market which can only be good for us. It will be down to individual retailers, aggregators and re-sellers to provide the necessary differentiation to make their offering stand out in the market (which is what we do well) and while competition may increase we will be well-placed to benefit from the open access network.
Timescales for roll-out are currently vague but the irony is that after years of complaining about limited backhaul across the Bass Strait, Tasmania may be the first state to see real benefits from the NBN.
No doubt there will be much discussion and media coverage over the coming days, weeks and months and we will ensure that we do all we can to stay informed and, in-turn, keep you informed.
As a starter we’ve included a couple of links below that you might find interesting regarding the NBN announcement.
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