RESIDENTS of smaller towns across the Highlands will miss out on the Federal Government’s $43 billion National Broadband Network (NBN), according to Hume MP Alby Schultz.
Even if consumers in the Hume electorate were able to access the NBN they would have to pay a minimum of $200 per month to use it, Mr Schultz claimed.
“Prime Minister Rudd announced that the Government’s
grandiose new broadband plan, which is very scant in detail, will ‘connect homes, schools and workplaces with optical fibre, providing broadband services to Australians in urban and regional towns with speeds of 100 megabits
per second extending to towns with a population of around 1000 or more people’,” he said.
“This means if you live in Berrima, Exeter, Penrose, Sutton, Tallong, Taralga or Wingello, and many of the other smaller rural communities of the Hume electorate, you will not be able to access this new network.”
Mr Schultz said 5500 people in the Hume electorate living in towns with populations of under 1000 would miss out.
“In all, over 20 towns and locations [in Hume] have been
dumped into the too-hard basket by Mr Rudd. 5500 plus residents living in these localities in Hume have been told point-blank by Kevin Rudd that they are second class citizens and can forget about the idea of equity with cities,” he said.
“Under Labor’s proposal, towns with less than 1000 people will be serviced by satellite and wireless broadband, almost 10 times slower than the fibre to the
premises services planned for metro areas.”
Communication minister Stephen Conroy dismissed the
Opposition’s accusations and said consumers would pay about the same as they do now for a much inferior product. He said the claims were based on a flawed assumption that the Government owned company would be the retailer.
“We will be a wholesale company, not a retailer. We will
not sell direct to the retailer,” he said. “The national broadband network will be a general access wholesale network.”
Internet providers would sell the service to homes and
businesses and “for the same price you pay now, you’ll get faster packages”, Senator Conroy said.
But Mr Schultz has some big guns up his sleeve.
“Mr Paul Broad, CEO of Australia’s third largest Telco, AAPT, has predicted that under the most ‘optimistic case’
broadband users will have to pay at least $200 a month to use the network,” Mr Schultz said.
“Mr Broad is the latest authoritative voice to question the viability of Labor’s broadband proposal.
“The reality is that the Rudd Labor Government cannot
guarantee that Australians, in sufficient numbers, will be
prepared to pay premium prices to use this service in order to make the $43 billion project viable.”
Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull insisted the project -
forecast to cost up to $43 billion over eight years - would not make money unless subscribers paid up to $150 or $200 a month.
He said the estimate was based on an assumption that about 4.5 million people, or half the market at present, signed up for the fibreto-home service.
“The only way it can happen is with a massive Government subsidy, tens and tens of billions of dollars,” he said.
Senator Conroy said estimates should not be based on current patterns because the network would change everything.
Optus backed his view, saying it would lead to a range of new services, a sharp spike in internet use and greater competition because it would neutralise the dominance of Telstra.
A spokesman for Optus, Maha Krishnapillai, said internet
subscriptions and services offered had increased sharply in other countries after the introduction of very fast broadband.
“It’s not so much looking at today, it’s what’s going to happen in the future,” he said.
But Mr Schultz was demanding greater transparency on one of the government’s biggest capital outlays.
“I call on the Prime Minister to release the NBN expert panel’s report, on which the $43 billion plan is based, in full together with the report of the ACCC,” he said.
“His refusal to release these reports, despite an order from the Senate to do so, places in question the viability of such a mammoth plan, and suggests that both Prime Minister Rudd and Senator Conroy may have things to hide.”
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