Right Pulse

Compared to what Telstra can do now at minimal cost, the purpose of Rudd’s future big government run broadband network is what exactly?

…provide a two-finger salute to the government in the process.

The idea was to spend $300 million to upgrade the HFC cable network Telstra owns in the capital cities. The original NBN was supposed to deliver minimum speeds of 12 Mbps. Telstra would upgrade the speeds available through the HFC – which passes a million homes in Melbourne – to 100 Mbps. Should the upgrade go well, they were warning, they could spend a total of less than $1 billion to deliver 100 Mbps to all the capitals.

The HFC upgrade and Telstra’s show of continuing defiance and aggression might have been a provocation too far, forcing the government to consider the impact of such an upgrade on the richest consumer markets and its implications for the original NBN.

Ultimately it revealed the ‘new’ NBN, with its own 100 Mbps capacity (and higher upload speeds), as well as a package of threatening and punitive new regulatory measures to ensure Telstra was finally brought to heel.

The purpose of Rudd’s own future network is to destory private enterprise and wealth – not provide faster connection speeds to users. While Telstra has not released the prices of their new service, given Telstra’s relatively low capital investment compared to Rudd’s $43 billion investment, the final prices are likely to be in – total terms – much lower than anything the NBN could offer customers.