Abbott battles to defend 'grab bag' broadband plan

Source: The Australian

The government has strongly challenged Tony Abbott's $6.32bn alternative policy, insisting it would deny fibre technology to at least 1000 cities and towns, including Darwin, Bathurst, Port Lincoln, Launceston and Toowoomba. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy called it a "a grab bag of policies" that would leave Australia in the "digital dark ages". And industry experts have questioned the Coalition policy for being an interim response rather than a plan for nation-building.

Labor's NBN, first proposed at the 2004 election, will provide fibre-based broadband across the nation, and the government says it will deliver a giant leap forward for the nation's productivity.

The Coalition announced yesterday it would instead encourage private-sector investment in a mix of technologies that would guarantee fast broadband services to 97 per cent of the nation by 2016.

The policy draws the first serious ideological division in the campaign for the August 21 election, as the major parties had been split more by their scale of proposed spending than by different approaches to policy delivery.

Last night, the Opposition Leader was unable to answer questions about the fine detail of the broadband proposal when interviewed on the ABC's 7.30 Report.

Asked about technical details on factors including download speeds, Mr Abbott refused to comment, insisting he was "not a tech-head". "If you're going to get me into a technical argument I'm going to lose," he said, noting that his communications spokesman, Tony Smith, had participated in a debate on technical aspects at the National Press Club earlier.

Mr Abbott said the government had bungled the rollout of so many programs he did not believe it could deliver the NBN for $43bn.

Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb said the NBN was an example of Labor's "tax, spend and borrow" approach to government. Rather than create a government monopoly and a "stodgy and cumbersome bureaucracy", the Coalition was prepared to back the private sector. "We will embrace fierce competition, not stifle it," he said. "There is a better way."

Under the Coalition's plan, 97 per cent of households will have services with speeds of up to 100 megabits per second -- and a minimum of 12 megabits -- by 2016 through a mixture of HFC cable, DSL and fixed wireless services. It would spend $2.75bn to create a nationwide competitive fibre-optic "backbone" by 2017, expecting it to attract $750 million extra in private-sector funding.

It would also spend $750m on existing fixed broadband services to increase the number of households that could receive a DSL service, and up to $1bn on new fixed wireless networks in rural areas. Up to $700m would support provision of improved satellite services to cover the remaining 3 per cent of the population.

Senator Conroy said the Coalition would consign Australians to "the digital dark ages," and damage the economy for decades. "The Coalition's policy is like building the Sydney Harbour Bridge with two lanes and will not deliver super fast broadband for all Australians," Senator Conroy said.

Internet Industry Association chief executive Peter Coroneos said the opposition's plan fell "significantly short" of the NBN.

"The private sector has had all this time to deliver broadband and they've only made the decision to do that where it makes commercial sense," he said.

"Wireless is never going to be a substitute for fibre."

Additional reporting: James Chessell