The playing of a lone hand on broadband may be considered by Canberra
A number of industry sources have said that the government may have to ditch private bids to construct the multi-billion dollar project and go it alone in the building of the national broadband network.
It is expected that an announcement is imminent for the successful tender for the $9 billion-plus project, which is a key commitment made in the election.
Stephen Conroy, the Communications Minister, declared that the network building will be “one of the largest infrastructure projects ever undertaken by any Australian government”. The NBN story has been fraught throughout its history, although many large projects often come with big problems.
Threats of legal action from Telstra, the issue of capital access during the worldwide economic downturn and concerns that specifications for the project have become too politically prescriptive are just some of the issues that the bidders for the project currently face.
A consultant for the industry recently commented “The details of the outcome of the bidding process are incredibly tightly held. There are a number of different stories going about. One says the Government could do something itself. Originally, the NBN was going to form part of the stimulus package. It didn’t get done in time. Then it was supposed to be part of the infrastructure package. They might dress it up – digging trenches and all that – as a really big job-creation project.”
Going it alone is something that the source was adamant had been considered saying “The Government could build out the project over five years and then have an asset it would sell into the market space. Labor people would love it. ‘We’re going back into telcos,’ they’d say. Voters wouldn’t mind, either. Telstra’s not exactly the flavor of the month out there.”
December saw the exclusion of Telstra from the NBN Process. The idea that the company may sue in order to stop its infrastructure from being access is currently the greatest fear.
Simon Molloy, a communications economist said “The preponderant thing not making the tender process produce an outcome is the threat of legal action by Telstra, which is protracted and blocking. If you think about the telecommunications system, the thing of most value, the thing that is most difficult to replicate, most expensive to deploy, is the holes in the ground. The real cost is in the civil works.”
