Who is NBN being built for?

Two of the biggest questions that have seemingly been omitted from the NBN agenda are how much Australians really want to pay for their broadband and what speeds are they looking for? Putting it simply, demand and willingness to pay for it.

The selection process in which the government will be giving more than $4.7 billion to either Telstra or Terria allowing one of them to provider high-speed broadband access to 98 percent of Australians will soon commence.

A few questions, however, seem to remain unanswered that many feel are more than obvious as the service is rushed out to an Australian public that may not necessarily want the services. All of the metro areas across the country currently have access to ADSL2+ and demand for the service doesn’t currently seem to show any indication of becoming stretched at any point in the near future.
The ability for any of the participants of the NBN bid to compete on a level playing field has been severely hampered by the lack of a clear view and rules with regards to the regulation of the future network. The bid itself will be the determining factor of the rules and the regulatory outcome will be totally influenced by the bid winner.

The main thing on most customers’ minds is for better services, better products and better prices. Non negotiable facts are for reasonable contracts, equivalence of access in price and non-price terms and the ability to differentiate between products. Product innovation should be the driving force for speed: the focus from facilities based to services-based competition should be shifted by structural separation, give players the chance to differentiate, innovate and meet consumer demands by delivering products.

Discussions on alternative methods of connecting the worlds most geographically dispersed population has recently been overshadowed by debates focused on “who has the ability to build” with the difference in cost between a 96 percent and a 98 percent coverage in Australia being vast.