ACCC advises Gillard to strike out NBN plan’s monopolistic provisions
The Australian competition watchdog called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to oppose the national broadband network blueprint of establishing a forced monopoly by allowing only the construction of 14 interconnection points when the country requires at least 200 to efficiently access the superfast information highway.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) advised the federal government on Friday to ditch the specific NBN provision, in which NBN Co plans to build interconnecting points in five Australian capitals that would act as gateways for the country's telco providers to tap into the national network and deliver broadband services to their subscribers.
Australian telecommunication firms have been arguing that to map the whole country with effective internet connections, 400 points must be established around the nation that would allow for the realistic implementation of a high-speed fibre network.
The goal of providing an efficient and uniformed broadband service in the county is envisioned by the Australian government as a key catalyst that would spawn business growth and economic expansion, effectively shrinking the vast expanse of the country's geographic reach through online communications.
That plan was met with high hopes by a host of Australian business operators as a Macquarie Telecom survey published on Thursday showed that more than 50 percent of 500 business respondents expressed optimism on the benefits poised to be delivered by NBN.
The survey said that NBN services would facilitate for better business executions and allow the introduction of a more competitive environment in the economy, which should encourage for further growth on all business sectors.
Yet the contested provisions of the NBN, now highlighted by ACCC's formal objections could backtrack a bit the project's roll out if industry experts' assertions were to be believed that the government tends to be guided by the ACCC advisory on its actual implementation of the mammoth project.
Analysts said that if such is the case, the whole NBN plan could be subjected to some major tweaks and avoiding delays in the process would be too hard to achieve though not totally impossible.
However, Ms Gillard has proven her skills in working her way through thorny situations and convincing the Australian parliament to partition the giant telco firm Telstra Corporation is a testament to that ability, according to analysts, and solving this latest glitch could be just another working day for the Prime Minister.