Board and chair for NBN to be announced soon says Government
The new chair and board of the Federal Governments National Broadband Network in Australia will be announced in the very near future according to Stephen Conroy, the Communications Minister.
Senator Conroy recently advised “We’re looking at announcing the chair and hopefully the full board very, very shortly, we are just going through a range of discussions at the moment, just finalising that we’ve got a very, very strong calibre of candidates. It’s been quite gratifying to see that the people who have put their names forward have all been willing to work at well below what you would deem normal market rates in the telco sector, but they believe in the project.”
So far the NBN company has five directors, all of whom are public servants, and it has been formally registered said Conroy. He also added that instead if having the NBN network in direct competition with Telstra Corp LTD, which is the current incumbent provider of broadband in Australia, it would be quicker and less expensive to work alongside Telstra to build the NBN network.
Mr Conroy said “Look, I’ve always said that if Telstra took the decision that it was a win for their shareholders, then ultimately it would mean we would be able to build the network faster and it probably would be able to be cheap because obviously if these assets come in we don’t need to duplicate them. So common sense would say that a combination would be a great outcome.”
Talks with Telstra were going well so far with the new Telstra management, which has seen Sol Trujillo replaced by new chief executive, David Tholey, and the telco appear to have taken a more constructive approach during these talks said Senator Conroy.
He said “I think that the new board, the new management are showing a very constructive approach. I’ve had a number of very, very constructive discussions with Telstra, and spectrum licenses have been a hot issue, the existing licenses come up for renewal a little bit down the track and people are looking for certainty about their existing network.”
Source – www.businessspectator.com.au
