Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Trouble down under with national broadband program

The Australian labor government and the nation's predominant telco Telstra are at loggerheads over the government's National Broadband Project, the goal of which is to bring broadband to 98 percent of homes and businesses, reports Business Day. Telstra isn't willing to go that far and wants its rollout to reach only 80 to 90 percent.

It's also balking at the government's demand that its infrastructure and retail arms be separated, apparently to discourage the latter from driving the former's broadband deployment strategy as has occured in other nations including the U.S. where telcos concentrate on selling services to more profitable areas while leaving others without broadband access.

No comments: