IDC says there will be no NBN in 2009

Any plans to begin building the federal governments national broadband network will not occur until next year according to the analyst group IDC.

IDC also reported that the telecoms sector in Australia would continue to grow even in light of the worsening economic climate in one of the many predictions it made about the Australian telecommunications market. It also predicted that this year would see a growth of between 3 percent and 4 percent in Telecoms service revenue.

Although the national broadband network project, which had been announced in the run up to the November 2007 federal election, was a key area of  political debate recently but IDC said “build out is not expected to commence in 2009.”

David Cannon the IDC telecommunications program manager said that although progression made in the NBN tender process, the need for a further set of requirements, which included approvals from local councils and new legislation, meant that this year would be unlikely to see any building work taking place on the network.

Mr Cannon said that the “fizzling out” of the entire NBN process without the network even being built was a distinct possibility.

He said “I think that there is a big chance that it is going to take place. The first aims of the government should be to protect competition and to protect consumers on the price at which broadband is sold. Those should be the first two objectives and I’m just not sure that we are getting there.”

Mr Cannon also said that it was highly likely that the current economic crisis would have a serious impact on the national broadband network project.

The continuation of a shift toward data and IP telephony in the enterprise market was also predicted by the IDC.