Fergie's Tech Blog

Australia: Telcos in Broadband Alliance

An AAP newswire article, via Australian IT, reports that:

A group of telecoms companies, including number two provider Optus, has joined together to form a plan for upgrading broadband around the nation.

The companies - Optus, Macquarie Telecom, PowerTel, Primus, Internode, Soul and TransACT - want telcos to collectively fund the building of a new high-speed network of fibre cables around the country that all telcos could access.

They are unhappy with a plan put forward by Telstra, which currently owns Australia's network of copper phone lines, to build new fibre cables.

Under Telstra's plan, it would spend an estimated $3 billion over the next three to five years to roll out fibre cables in five capital cities capable of giving four million people high-speed broadband.

The catch is that Telstra will only make such a huge investment if it is given some competition protections by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

posted by Fergie @ 4/21/2006 10:51:00 AM