NBN Wrap: What Happened With Australia’s Broadband This Week?

It has been a week of conflict with the National Broadband Network. As we’ve come to expect, nothing much of substance happened with the roll-out of the actual fibre, but there was plenty of spirited debate when it came to public policy.

Malcolm Turnbull responded to criticism over his Twitter debate with a broadband-impoverished small business owner by posting a reasoned, rational article on his blog. That probably hasn’t stopped many passionate NBN advocates as thinking of him as the Anti-Christ, of course.

The Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network released its interim report on Wednesday afternoon, with 150 pages of full-on attack against the Liberal Government’s allegedly politcally driven strategic review of the NBN from December last year. The Committee’s three Liberal members weren’t happy, as you’d expect, and inserted a 30-page dissenting statement at the end of the report.

Earlier in the week, TPG and NBNCo traded harsh words over TPG’s continued competition for customer dollars. TPG’s build-out of a fibre-to-the-basement network for the country’s half a million apartment blocks is unwanted competition for NBNCo’s chair Ziggy Switkowski, who wants the government-owned network to enjoy a monopoly for some time after its construction.

TPG also launched its own plans for customers on the regular National Broadband Network; its cut-rate $59.99 plan offers unlimited downloads at 12MBps speeds, where the iiNet equivalent costs $20 more.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

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