Conroy, Rudd and Quigley feel the broadband Crunch

This week's Crunch comes to you not-quite-live from the Federal Government's half-million dollar gabfest, the Realising our Broadband Future Forum.

The competitive structure of Australia's telecommunications industry is "less than ideal", according to Mike Quigley, CEO of the NBNCo, who said the National Broadband Network will help level the playing field.

The Prime Minister, meanwhile, told the delegation of "IT geeks" that Australia's broadband infrastructure was "not up to scratch".

"The reality is that Australia's current broadband infrastructure is not up to scratch. Slow broadband is holding our nation back. We have got to change that.  Average broadband speeds in Australia are 40 times slower than the world leader Japan.

And in a national exclusive, Senator Stephen Conroy reveals in vivid detail the current progress of his negotiations with Telstra, courtesy of a time lapse camera.

Also on this week's Crunch - the Telstra Global Operations Centre

Earlier this year, Munir Kotadia had a look around Telstra's Global Operations Centre in Victoria.

It took Telstra six years to prepare and execute its ambitious plan, which involved consolidating hundreds of sites spread all over Australia into a single building.

According to Michael Rocca, group managing director, Telstra networks and services, it was a world first.

"Back [in 1992] we had over 122 sites performing the function that this site performs today. It was a bold move ... to rationalise and consolidate all those together in one. It was a world first, nobody had attempted it before, and even today, Telstra is one of the few telcos in the world that has a facility like this," said Rocca.

The actual centre, which opened on August 27, 1999, took 15 months of construction and cost $35 million. Rocca estimates a similar facility built today would cost more than $100 million. However, he admits the rapid evolution of technology has required substantial investment.

Click here for a photo gallery of the Telstra GOC.