Tasmanian NBN rollout in limbo

Launceston, TAS, 25 September 2013 – Consumer group Digital Tasmania has questioned how the Coalition Government’s changes to the NBN announced yesterday would affect Tasmania. Despite the NBN Company having a set objective to complete the rollout in Tasmania by 2015 with mostly Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology, there was no mention of Tasmania in yesterday’s announcements leaving the rollout in a state of limbo.

Digital Tasmania spokesperson Andrew Connor said “The Coalition government has failed to confirm their pre-election commitment that the NBN rollout in Tasmania would continue as planned”. (Ref 1)

Several things in yesterday’s announcement just don’t add up:

• Before the election the Coalition consistently stated that they will continue the NBN fibre rollout to ‘premises where construction contracts have been signed’ however yesterday they said that the rollout will only continue where detailed designs are ready to be handed over to contractors. Many construction contracts have been entered into across Australia and for Tasmania construction for the entire state had already been contracted; including 200,000 homes via fibre where for many detailed designs are not yet ready.

• Yesterday’s announcement only guaranteed that 300,000 more connections would be made by fibre optic nationwide, however if that figure also includes the 200,000 in Tasmania there can’t be many contracts signed for the whole of mainland Australia. Something doesn’t add up!!

Mr Connor continued “Regional customers including all of Tasmania are also likely to lose out under the guise of wholesale competition as foreshadowed by the Coalition Government.” If allowed, telecommunications providers are likely to cherry pick high profit areas such as mainland capitals and completely forget about Tasmania as previously experienced. This will remove the explicit cross-subsidy of the NBN to less commercially viable areas such as Tasmania. (Ref 2)

“Competition at the network or wholesale level into each home is unnecessary and wasteful… we don’t have competing water or electricity networks, why duplicate fixed-line telecommunications? Despite the advanced rollout of the NBN in Tasmania it has already been dealt severe blows by lack of competitive and reliable backhaul across Bass Strait and adverse ACCC decisions which were detailed in a recent Technology Spectator report” said Mr Connor (Ref 3).

Digital Tasmania calls on the Coalition Government, particularly their Tasmanian MP’s to confirm that the rollout in Tasmania will proceed as planned using fibre to the premises for most customers. We also welcome Coalition Government’s NBN reviews take an apolitical view of the long term benefits of fibre all the way to the premises (FTTP) rather than to the node then using old copper to homes and businesses. FTTP is the only practical and economical solution in the long term for Australia’s communications needs – a view shared by most experts in the field and other countries.

“Tasmania is already on the fast-track to get the current NBN rollout finished by 2016, well before the rest of the country in 2021. Already 35,000-plus premises can connect to the NBN fibre optic in Tasmania, with between 25 and 50% of residents taking up that option already” said Mr Connor.

If the rollout changes direction under a Coalition Government, what we could have is one suburb or one street able to connect with fibre to the home and the next street or suburb stuck with an inferior copper based service.

Ref 1: The Examiner – 17 August 2013
http://www.examiner.com.au/story/1711548/turnbull-confirms-nbn-will-honour-contracts/

Ref 2: The Australian – 24 September 2013
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/ziggy-must-think-twice-about-taking-up-nbns-top-role/story-fng7vg0p-1226725531936

Ref 3: Technology Spectator – 17 September 2013
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/9/17/technology/backhaul-remains-nbns-weak-link

About Digital Tasmania:

Digital Tasmania is a consumer action group, created in 2008 to give a voice to the views and needs of Tasmanian consumers in the digital age. For more information see http://www.digitaltasmania.org
Digital Tasmania spokesperson Andrew Connor