In an interview with The Australian Financial Review today, Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that he has the Coalition’s ubiquitous high-speed broadband plan ready to go that will give high-speed fibre internet access that will satisfy most users.
That’s right. Most users.
Turnbull told the AFR that the plan is fully costed, unlike Labor’s National Broadband Network, and that it mirrors the fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) roll out by BT in the United Kingdom. Fibre would be run to cabinets in heavily populated areas and fibre would be run to the home from these cabinets. Turnbull added that the plan is similar to that of the UK, but not identical because, in Australia “there’s quite a bit to unpick”, referring of course to the deals with Optus and Telstra.
Turnbull says he’d still work with NBN Co to complete the roll-out, so those guys aren’t going anywhere, but he said that it would be done “more efficiently”, with one of those efficiencies coming from a cheaper network deployment.
Of course there’s a bit of a difference between the UK and Australia, namely the vast distances required to be covered by fast broadband, but at least the Coalition has a fully costed plan, sitting, waiting, ready to go in Turnbull’s top drawer.
Turnbull Swipes At The Media
When the latest iteration of NBN Co’s corporate plan was released a few weeks ago, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy had some choice things to say about the Australian media when it came to reportage around the National Broadband Network.
Said Conroy:
I’m convinced that if Malcolm Turnbull put out a press release saying the NBN was late because the earth was flat, the AFR would run it…
Now, Turnbull’s getting in on the media swiping fun.
In his interview with the AFR he slammed pro-NBN reporters who served to encourage a type of “zealotry” among technologically educated citizens.
Let it be known that we here at Gizmodo aren’t pro-NBN. No. We’re pro-fast internet. I don’t care who provides it, so long as it’s ubiquitous, fast, cheap and future-proof. [AFR\]
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