Coalition vows to scrap $11bn NBN Co-Telstra deal

By Ry Crozier on Jun 21, 2010 8:04 AM
Filed under Telco/ISP

Industry welcomes agreement.

The Federal Opposition will scrap the $11 billion agreement between NBN Co and Telstra should it come to power at the next election, despite widespread industry support for the deal.

NBN Co and Telstra signed a financial heads of agreement yesterday that will provide NBN Co with access to Telstra's passive infrastructure (pits, ducts and backhaul fibre) and eliminate the incumbent as a fixed-line wholesale competitor.

But the deal remains subject to regulatory and shareholder approval, with Telstra chief David Thodey warning that a "very significant amount of work must still be done on many complex issues."

Opposition Communications Minister Tony Smith seized on the comment as he lambasted the Government over the agreement.

"It is clear that if any agreement is to be reached it will not be finalised for many months, well after the federal election," Smith said.

"Clearly because the Coalition does not support Labor’s reckless NBN we would not proceed with this arrangement if elected."

Smith said Labor was "once again trying to solve a problem by throwing billions of dollars of taxpayers' cash at it."

The telecommunications and internet industry were broadly supportive. ISP iiNet's chief Michael Malone welcomed the deal, saying his company "had always believed [the national broadband network] would be better served by having Telstra involved rather than not."

“From our initial examination of yesterday’s announcement, the agreement is consistent with the Federal Government’s earlier commitments of an open access network, structural separation and regulatory reform," he said.

Telstra will front media and analysts this morning to shed more light on the deal reached.

Stay tuned to iTnews for more as the story progresses.

Coalition vows to scrap $11bn NBN Co-Telstra deal

32 comments in this discussion

"@Digger11 It's not always cool to be alternative. Emo? Drive a Prius?"

By TruthSphere

Tags

coalition, tony, smith, opposition, broadband, nbn, telstra, nbnco, agreeement

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Comments: 32

EMwyres Jun 21, 2010 10:53 AM	Utterly amazing - the opposition remains basically silent on the issues that need to be torn down (eg: mandatory filtering, logging) - yet the one project they should be supporting, they are blabbering about scuttling just to try and score some political points. Where the hell has Tony Smith been for the last two years as the opposition communications spokesperson?
Raj Jun 21, 2010 11:34 AM	NBN Co needs to produce Cost Benefit Analysis report to justify support from non-self interest parties. I am a taxpayer, I hate to see another BER.
Digger11 Jun 21, 2010 12:18 PM	@EMwyres, I think you have got this around totally reversed. The vast majority of the population are not terorost nor pedophiles so want the Internet cleaned up and will fully support a filter. The NBN is a waste of moeny and a crock. The liberals can see this which is great (even greater that the general public has awoken to the disaster that KRUDD is - it took longer for them to work out Whitlam was a sham before he got dumped by the voters back in 1975. All we need is for the Govt. to force Telstra to ADSL2+ Enable all exchanges and force them to wholesale at fair rates (along with the Telstra monopoly on regional backhaul). That will cover about 90% of the population - the other 10% can be serviced by satellite or wireless. Let's stop spending our kids inheritance on these stupid "economy building" exercises the labour party seems intent on.
Bazwalt Jun 21, 2010 12:23 PM	I agree with you EMwyres, it's utterly amazing (thanks for the words) that when the #1 thing this country needs gets a chance to shine the coalition shine their rear ends with threats to scrape a project that will benefit the country for many years to come. All in the name of scoring political points. Totally disgraceful - DIAF.
Bazwalt Jun 21, 2010 12:30 PM	@Digger11 -- What???????????????? I think you need to wake up mate, the NBNco isn't all about speeds. The country needs a resilient communications infrastructure - Copper is not resilient and a complete money sink. It needs to go. Telstra has not expressed any interest in fairly and efficiently deploying a fibre network for the country. ADSL2+ in all exchanges is not the answer and the AFG has been in battles with Telstra for years to try and criple Telstra's monopoly. This is the best outcome we could have hoped for. Wake up Digger11
Ace Jun 21, 2010 12:31 PM	No railway, no roads and no Telecommunications infrastructure would have been built in Australia if the decision to build such things came down to a Cost-Benefit Analysis. All these things are exceedingly expensive in Australia - mostly due to our geography, but we recognise the importance of nation building, and that sometimes we must wear a cost to gain an either very long-term benefit, or a non-tangible, non-quantifiable benefit, like bringing communities together. Hubble still floats around in space, well past its use-by date and at great expense simply because people like it, and are clearly happy to pay for it. CBAs are for accountants to buy pencils for the office, not for visionaries. It certainly seems the Libs have very little vision for Australia's future, and if they do, I'd love to hear what it is. Currently their vision seems to be a return to the 'good-old-days' of the '50s or something. Unfortunately, Conroy seems to have a similar vision.
imcleod Jun 21, 2010 12:46 PM	"Hubble still floats around in space, well past its use-by date and at great expense simply because people like it" - well that's nice - because we don't pay for it. The American tax payer does. Even so NASA and JPL are a very small proportion of the American GDP so no one really complains. "CBAs are for accountants to buy pencils for the office, not for visionaries" - funny - I think Argentina and Russia tried this theory once - and they both went bankrupt. I wonder why. So are you proposing that we should just create 'visions', go out and forcibly extract the funding from the Australian community, and go forth? I think the worlds biggest pyramid would look awesome and make us feel great, but I'm not suggesting we extract funding from the Australian community to build pyramids. Hey, I think the Mayans tried this, and look, they collapsed too. Everyone loves a 'vision' as long as someone else pays for it. But in this case, we will pay for it, so we need to ask hard questions, as the 22 million shareholders of Australia. I have laid a few questions out at ianpmcleod.com - one big one is submarine cables that everyone seems to forget we need, and the latest and greatest one, PIPE was purely private funded and almost collapsed due to lack of interest.
johnpro2 Jun 21, 2010 1:49 PM	Forget about the price ...the libs prefer to stick with ink wells and nibs. As Sir Henry Royce said ..the price is soon forgotton but the quality remains. Jp
BlastedUser Jun 21, 2010 2:16 PM	@EMwyres, the Libs also support the principle of filtering so there's no hope of internet freedom from that side. However, the Greens oppose this filtering so I think that's where my vote will go.
Ace Jun 21, 2010 2:20 PM	"Everyone loves a 'vision' as long as someone else pays for it.". I believe pollies pay tax too. "So are you proposing that we should just create 'visions', go out and forcibly extract the funding from the Australian community, and go forth?" Yes, this is the correct course of action. If you want consensus, the only thing you can be assured of is a slow drift back to the dark ages. You have to be a little brave to move forward. It doesn't mean you do so without thought, but there's nothing worse than fart-arsing around and doing nothing (which ironically, despite the NBN, is exactly what Rudd is being accused of). I love the 'Mayans' comment, and am suprised you didn't mention Hitler somewhere. Maybe the fact we're here today is because we're smarter than the Mayans? Well, some of us anyway.
Ewok Jun 21, 2010 4:00 PM	@Digger. I'm a taxpayer, don't you dare speak for me you uneducated muppet. The internet filter that has been recommended by con-roy, is a farse. The fact alone that he has come out and openly stated that anyone is permitted to circumvent it is proof enough that should it be implimented, it will not work in the first place. If you want to protect your children or whathaveyou, do it yourself, not at my expense. ISP's will already offer you internet filtering services, we don't need a blanket solution so incompetent parent's such as yourself can sleep better at night knowing someone is looking after your children instead of the person who should be, you.
imcleod Jun 21, 2010 4:29 PM	"If you want consensus, the only thing you can be assured of is a slow drift back to the dark ages. You have to be a little brave to move forward. It doesn't mean you do so without thought, but there's nothing worse than fart-arsing around and doing nothing" You just described the private sector very well. You put forward a strong case for outsourcing this to the private sector.
Digger11 Jun 21, 2010 5:04 PM	"the Libs also support the principle of filtering so there's no hope of internet freedom from that side. However, the Greens oppose this filtering so I think that's where my vote will go." ummm, the Greens actually oppose 100% of all ideas and have never voted for anything or done anything positve in their whole electoral career. They give their preferences to labour anyway - so a vote for the Greens is the same as a vote fro Krudd (or maybe Gillard) anyway.
zag Jun 21, 2010 5:05 PM	@Bazwalt: "The country needs a resilient communications infrastructure - Copper is not resilient and a complete money sink. It needs to go. Telstra has not expressed any interest in fairly and efficiently deploying a fibre network for the country." Um, The whole reason why the NBN came about was Telstra wanted to spend 6 billion of their own money to setup a fibre to the node network only for their customers. The Labour Gov high-jacked the plan and asked around and you end up with what you see today. Just remember it was Telstra's idea first not the Gov they simply high-jacked it so they can money grab along the way while reducing your freedom's on the network with narzi style. After all how else are they going to pay back the 550 billion dollars they spent last year, they had spent 450billions then spent another 140+ billion on the hospital plan (which won't help anything) I just find it strange that a Fibre plan that cost Telstra 6 billion costs the gov over 40 billion, dodgy? nar of course not!!!
Digger11 Jun 21, 2010 5:09 PM	@EWOK, Go Star Wars, it is really grouse hey .... So we don't need the Govt. to protect us from anything. That is really great, all speed limits are now deleted and you can drive at any speed you think is safe. and we will all go down to the parks with our kids as we should be protecting them from the pedophiles - afterall it is the parents responsibility isn't it ??? I'm guessing you're not the brightest tool in the shed hey EWOKY ??
Ace Jun 21, 2010 5:40 PM	@imcleod, you are correct in that it would all possibly go faster in the private sector, although obviously with less transparency and evenness. The problem in the private sector is that they cannot do such things because they can't afford it. The return would not be sufficient in the short to medium term to justify to shareholders the outlay. A government can because it's underlying vision is not dependent upon a financial return (as I mentioned before). And it shouldn't be. It's about building blocks for a competitive Australia in an increasingly globalised market place. The payback comes through this competitiveness, jobs and a more 'connected' nation.
1 Hung Lo Jun 21, 2010 6:32 PM	@Digger11 Telstra hasn't maintained the copper for years. It is simply deteriorating quickly. So why have they done this? Telstra wanted to milk every last dollar out of their ancient copper network. By now, they should of had fibre technology rolled out. Fibre is for the future and is easily upgradeable.
singo79 Jun 21, 2010 6:56 PM	@Digger11 - Sorry mate but I do not agree with your opinion that everyone wants the filter. In my travels and speaking with family and colleagues I have found that everyone wants the NBN but are totally against the filter. The filter, as many people are aware, does not work properly as it can be bypassed and if you do bypass the filter there is no penalty. On the other hand you have many Australians either without broadband internet or have costly, sluggish and crowded wireless internet. The NBN is a must in this day and age, for the copper network is deteriorating, it is 19th century technology trying to operate in a 21st century environment. To move forward you need to have the infrastructure to do it. After all, if past Government's had listened to the opposition and taxpayers when trying to build a national telephone network, or supply electricity to every household, well then they would have never happened. There was plenty of opposition to these two plans, but the Government's of the day decided to push ahead with their plans and look at the success that they made. The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Snow Mountain Scheme were also strongly opposed, yet the Government's went ahead with these projects and they have been extremely successful. At the end of the day this project has to/will go ahead, for the vast majority of Australians actually agree with it. These Morgan and Nielsen polls are often inadequate and fail to speak with a wide enough demographic to get a decent cross-section of the Australian public. The Liberal Party, who's motto now stands as "oppose everything, stand for nothing" are disorganised, ill-informed and lacking the technological knowledge to make any comment worthwhile of listening to on this matter. No political party is perfect, after all it was the Liberal Party that got us into this situation after their unbridled passion to sell Telstra went ahead, to every Australians detriment. Sure the Liberal Party got this country into surplus, but they had to do so by cutting funding to hospitals and the like, as well as selling Telstra! The NBN may not be attractive to everyone, but the vast majority of people that I happen to speak with agree that the NBN must go ahead.
Digger11 Jun 22, 2010 9:20 AM	@singo79, sorry, I should not have said eveyone wants the filter - it's juu that everyone I talk to or discuss this with has no problem with the filter - which is entirely different to the keyboard warriors opinions we read here. The main argument that appears to be put forward by the anti-filter lobby (size ???) is that they don't trust the Govt. This is as bizarre as it gets - we let the Govt run our legal sytem, lock up the criminals, set the laws, decide what we can and cannot say (mention the word Indian and immigration in a negative sense and see how quickly you are shut down), decide on immigration numbers, decide on how much tax we pay, decide on how much pensioners get paid, decide how fast we can drive, decide who can drive, decide who can drink, decide when we can open and close our shops, decide on bascially everything that affects out life - so to then say "we don't truct them with an Internet filter" is really eally really weird. Don't you think ?? The NBN is a total and utter sham - people have been conned into believing it is a Superhighway. I lived just out of Tokyo for over 2 years and had fibre cabled to my apartment - and all I got was [slightly] faster Internet than I get now in Melbourne. The fibre does nothing that a good ADSL2+ connection cannot achieve. The NBN will not do medical radiology or solve cancer - it is akin to adding a lane to a 4 lane highway, does very very little other than let traffic move a bit faster (it doesn't give you a new car). If you want to understand the NBN then you need to go back to when the FFTH scheme was first developed by Telstra. It was purely designed to con the labout govt.(who was in opposition at the time) and they run with it against Coonan like a feral dog. It was designed by Telstra to maroon competitors DSLAM investments - nothing more, nothing less.
anonymous Jun 22, 2010 10:42 AM	No, Dig, we don't let the govt run our legal system (look up the separation of powers if you don't understand that). Conboy & Co are misleading people by asking "Are you in favour of stopping CP, rape and terrorist sites", when they know that all these things are illegal and are NOT sent over the open Internet where they can be detected (or blocked by the filter). And you can't even get your comms tech facts right - the Telstra plan to block competitors proposed FTTN, not FTTH.
Mobius Jun 22, 2010 11:47 AM	Guys if you don't already know Digger11 is a troll. 9/10 people don't want a filter he is that other 1. His posts make it seem like there's a real debate for a filter. Best to ignore... Anyway unfortunately I see the NBN and internet filter going hand in hand. The real reasons behind a filter is to shutdown the internet as we know it the filter will go a long way in proving how far Government can intrude and control what information we can see. It has very little to do with protecting children or blocking illegal material.
Digger11 Jun 22, 2010 12:52 PM	Guys (and girls ?) if you don't already know - Mobius is so childish that when he disagrees with someones opinion he calls them a troll.... moron. He only knows 10 people and his mum sgrees with the filter so that is where he plucks these fantstic stats from. The only part of his childish post I agree with is that there is a real debate for the filter - there is not, it is a done deal that the vast majority of non-pedophile want (and if they don't want it, it is like a speed limit on the road, it is good for all of us so just accept it). total tool.
Rhino Jun 22, 2010 1:37 PM	Way to go Digger, reducing your arguments down to a personal attack on someone's mum. Seriously mate time to grow up. I was actually trying to see your point of view right up till that point. No matter what the cost analysis says, the NBN is a necessity in this country. Like someone said copper is old and not capable of what the Internet as it is today needs, and therefore we need something like the NBN. So on that I applaud the government. However, the internet filter, the desire to retain everyone internet activities, and now this ridiculous committee calling for software vendors to be open to lawsuits when security problems are found just solidifies my belief the people in power have no idea what they are doing when it comes to technology. And the fact the opposition is silent on a lot of these issues scares the hell out of me for what that means to this country. I love this country, and it's breaking my heart to see it being run by such clueless morons.
Digger11 Jun 22, 2010 2:40 PM	"Way to go Digger, reducing your arguments down to a personal attack on someone's mum. Seriously mate time to grow up. I was actually trying to see your point of view right up till that point." 1.This idiot clearly started the personal stuff. 2. I was stating that his Mum is probably the only sensible one he knows. I understand all of my views are correct - don't really care if people can't see the forest for the trees.
Jono Jun 22, 2010 4:00 PM	"I understand all of my views are correct - don't really care if people can't see the forest for the trees." Bahahaha Quote of the week right there! I am sorry Digger11, but is that not the same type of tune you sang for the iinet trial? We are all wrong and the benevolent Digger11 is right!? Look, simply put, the rubbish you spouted here is utterly incorrect and the worst type of analogy; “So we don't need the Govt. to protect us from anything. That is really great, all speed limits are now deleted and you can drive at any speed you think is safe. and we will all go down to the parks with our kids as we should be protecting them from the pedophiles - afterall it is the parents responsibility isn't it ???” The biggest issue’s with the filter is that it will put the non-tech savvy parents into a false sense of security. These parents will sit there and say “wow wonderful, my 12year old is now safe away from all the bad things in the world.” When in fact they are not, they will be able to google how to bypass the filter in a matter of seconds and get around it saying to themselves “hahaha mum the old bat will never know”.. There is also the problem than of the main driving forces that are meant to be for the filter is that it will block, that is CP and RC things. Well, in the case of CP these things are not easily available to get to as it is. These people are highly organised and use other transport methods (that have already been mentioned) to distribute the material. Look at it from another angle; it would be kinda stupid to drive down the highway in a BRIGHT pink convertible flashing your lights, honking your horns with 17kg of crack cocaine on the back seat will smoking a joint.. Don’t you think. These people underground for a reason… I can assure you, blocking URL’s is not going to curb that one bit.. You then have the RC content. This is a grey area on what should be available and I argued it a lot with a person named Maxx (I think).. But there are what would be defined as an RC site that should, imo, not be blocked. Things like pro-abortion, euthanasia and drug taking information (for the purpose of harm minimisation).. You may not like these sites and that’s your choice… But should they be blocked? You then now come into ‘creep’, perhaps not with this Govt or the next but sooner or later, we are going to get one that hates the site www.ouraustgovsucks.com.au and then will put that on the block list.. Then the next site that dares to take our PM of the times name in vain.. Where will it end? Why give them this cherry to begin with. Now with all that, why wouldn’t you just grab this big wad of cash and not plug in directly into the AFP to actually find and then brutalise the people that do these crimes – Imagine what the AFP could do with that direct amount of funds into its ‘high tech’ unit (or whatever it is called) So Digger, in future, please learn about the subject and also while you are at it, just learn to STFU sometimes
BlastedUser Jun 22, 2010 5:16 PM	@Digger, Yes, the Greens are just as obstructionist as the opposition, but at least they have a few ideas that are worth supporting that both major political parties aren't. And yes, it may just as well be a vote for Labour but we need Labour to know where their votes are coming from so that those ideas get proper consideration in future Labour policies.
Tom Brown Jun 22, 2010 7:39 PM	Hi Guys Everyone having fun I see. Just my 2 bobs worth. Digger11 ? the government force Telstra, how, threaten their bread and butter sweetheart deal wholesale and retail monopolisation, oh so that's how they did it, and its not just the download speed its the upload speed as well. Oh RAJ Cost benefits analysis, its a no brainer as all the brains have shown. This is just another stand up and look at me act from the opposition. The Hubble is great and don't pick on it just because it broke a couple of times. I am sure the astronomers for whom it was built appreciate the benefits. I think 9 out of 10 people against the internet filter may be loaded. Reactionaries looking for a forum may be inclined to push the votes whereas mild (non redneck) Australians don't voice their approval. Unfortunately I can see no way out of mandatory filtering, no opt out, any politics. The government is charged with a responsibility to safeguard Australians. The internet is a highway on which we stray often blinded by its psychological effects. Highways and railway lines are being fenced to protect wildlife and people. The attitude that generally people can control their internet is patently nonsense. Sorry, but many can't even get their wireless router configured with security. So governments will make efforts to ensure a (hopefully minimal) set is applied. I strongly believe there are 2 issues 1: That the blacklist be published and reviewable 2: The workings are covered by laws that state and federal governments cannot change, that is change only by referendum.
Pilotyoda Jun 22, 2010 7:45 PM	I agree with Ace. We would not have our current copper system if there had been Cost-Benefit-Analysis. Note: the quality of the existing system has allowed for the improvements gained by the current ADSL2+. A CBA would have left us with something like the early American phone system, useless by today's standards @digger. You seem to be such a fan of the Conroy Censorship software (filter). Can you not see any downside to it? Don't you have any concerns about the system being abused? I note that the existing free filter runs out of support at a critical time in this state of play. Seems that will put pressure on to adopt it, just when there should be more critical scrutiny.
Pilotyoda Jun 22, 2010 9:47 PM	Not sure about the analogy, @Tom Brown. A correct analogy would be: (Inset suburb) is a very bad area. It is full of crime/whatever. We will allow the crime to continue but we will block it from everyone else. Put up road blocks, remove the signs and the map entries and pretend it no longer exists. We will all be safe. But wait, they have their own communication system and there is an airport there and if I can go to a different airport I can not only see the place from the air , I can go there anyway, right over the top of the raodblock! If a bank robber gets away in a car do they make the roads corporations responsible for his use of the road? No. The responsibility to obey the laws is with the user and appropriate resourcing of the authorities to catch offenders and punish as required is the responsibility of the government and is its stick. There is no carrot.
EMwyres Jun 23, 2010 11:45 AM	@Digger11 - when it looks like a troll, talks like a troll, and smells like a troll, it probably is a troll...
Ace Jun 23, 2010 12:22 PM	Yes, @EMWyres, but he's our troll.
TruthSphere Jun 23, 2010 5:57 PM	@Digger11 It's not always cool to be alternative. Emo? Drive a Prius?