Leaked emails from industry experts have shredded the roll-out of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) and warned that taxpayers face a potential $20 Budget hit. From The Saturday Paper:
In the unusually frank correspondence, sent between members of a discussion list hosted by advocacy body Internet Australia, industry veteran Robin Eckermann acknowledged the copper-based fibre-to-the-node network (FTTN) would “unquestionably need upgrading in the future, and it will inevitably cost more than if it had been done from the outset”, while Internet Australia chairperson Dr Paul Brooks argued it was time to move on and that “trying to work out who to pin the mess on is pointless”. RMIT associate professor Mark Gregory said the NBN was in “a sad state that cannot be dismissed with weasel words”, adding that at some point supporters of the Coalition’s mixed-technology model for the NBN were “going to have to do a mea culpa… Rolling out the obsolete FTTN in 2014 was a national disgrace – there is nothing anyone can say that can justify this madness”…
The heated debate was sparked by the release of the latest Ookla global speed-test rankings, which showed Australia’s internet has dropped five places to 60th place, behind New Zealand, China, Malta and Trinidad and Tobago…
The debate confirms the NBN’s business model is in trouble as it nears its targeted completion date of 2020. The network is coming under mounting pressure to lower the wholesale prices it charges telecommunications companies for access to the network. However, lowering those prices would affect revenue and could force a write-down of the value of the network. The industry expects this could slug taxpayers to the tune of $20 billion…
In 2017, former Keating Government competition advisor, Fred Hilmer, predicted that the NBN would “be sold at a bargain price with the commonwealth taking a hit and blaming its predecessors”, thus costing taxpayers potentially tens-of-billions of dollars.
Sadly, Hilmer’s prediction looks like coming to fruition. What a mess.
