Government-delayed report reveals major problems

See Article: Consultants, lawyers, contractors: All aboard the NBN gravy train Everyone not wearing rose-coloured glasses with even a basic calculator could see the NBN project was bound for failure. And the incumbant Governments track record only reinforced our feelings. Recently the Senate Committe critisied the Government for not releasing a report in time for... View Article

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See Article: Consultants, lawyers, contractors: All aboard the NBN gravy train

Everyone not wearing rose-coloured glasses with even a basic calculator could see the NBN project was bound for failure. And the incumbant Governments track record only reinforced our feelings. Recently the Senate Committe critisied the Government for not releasing a report in time for the NBN and as a result cut the committee meeting short.

Now the report has been released, let’s look at the facts:

  • If those construction costs cannot be reined in and were repeated for all 12 million premises, then the NBN’s capital cost could blow out by $28bn.
  • NBN Co’s 900 employees are averaging more than $150,000 a year
  • $220m has been spent or committed to a billing and operational support system even though NBN Co will be dealing with at most only a couple of hundred customers
  • Telstra is set to sign off on a $13.8bn deal that will see nearly $3bn in contracts for use of Telstra’s fibre-optic cables and exchanges locked in, even if the NBN isn’t fully built. Taxpayers are underwriting the deal.
  • NBN Co is also buying out the Optus pay-TV network for more than $1bn, a price that Optus could only have dreamed of on the open market.
  • Within 10 years Australians will have to spend more than three times as much on fixed-line broadband as they do today. That’s a big call when broadband prices have fallen for the past 10 years.
  • Pork-barrelling that underpins the NBN saw it rolled out to communities in marginal seats such as Scottsdale and Smithton where more than 40 per cent of households [wages], double the national average
  • In Tasmania, where the network was first switched on, the take-up rate is less than 15 per cent.
  • The number of wireless (mobile) broadband users now rivals fixed-line users and spending on wireless broadband will soon match spending on fixed-line broadband.
  • Faced with a choice between higher speed fixed-line broadband over fibre and the utility and convenience of mobile broadband, many consumers will spend their discretionary dollar on mobile.

More and more it seems to me, that Australia is being intentionally recked – surely that isn’t the case!

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