An additional 1.3 million Australian households are being added to the country’s ambitious National Broadband Network, bringing the total number of premises where NBN construction will commence or be complete by June 2016 to more than 4.8 million.
Vodafone Hutchinson Australia has said that the NBN fibre to the premises project is vital to support mobile connectivity, the Register has reported. At an open public hearing of the Joint Committee on the National Broadband Network Matthew Lobb, Vodafone’s general manager of public policy, told the committee that the argument that “because consumers love mobile tech they don’t like wires the NBN is not important” was misleading and that “getting fixed line right is absolutely crucial for mobile networks.”
For those of us who spend our lives in the bubble of the international telecoms industry it was not exactly a massive surprise to see the news that Chinese vendor Huawei would be blocked from bidding for work on the country’s A$38bn National Broadband Network (NBN).
Chinese infrastructure vendor Huawei was told not to bid for any contracts relating to the Australian National Broadband Network (NBN) project, it has emerged. Local news agencies have reported that Huawei learned before Christmas last year that any efforts it made to win NBN contracts would be unsuccessful. The reports suggest that government concerns over security lie at the heart of the decision.
The Australian government has awarded Emerson Network Power a AUS$100 million contract to supply key infrastructure to the National Broadband Network (NBN) project in Australia. Emerson, said that it will be designing, supplying and installing cooling and infrastructure management systems at ten network centres to support the NBN roll-out across Australia.
Malcolm Turnbull, the Australian Shadow Minister for Communications on Broadband, tells Telecoms.com why he opposes the current government’s plans for deploying the much-anticipated National Broadband Network. Turnbull argues that existing technologies still have plenty to offer, and explains how his party, if elected, would do things differently.
NBN Co, the firm mandated by the Australian government to design, build and operate the country’s new fibre-based broadband network, has confirmed that it will offer multicast capabilities to service providers using the network that wish to deliver television services to their end-customers.
The head of Australian ISP Internode has criticised the NBN Co. for its pricing model. Internode chief executive Simon Hackett said in a blog post that despite government promises that Australian consumers would pay similar prices for access to the fibre-optic based NBN as they do for xDSL, in practice it would cost considerably more.
Australian retail and wholesale ISPs offering services over the National Broadband Network (NBN) have been advised by the country’s Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) to take care over how they advertise the speeds available.
While eHealth, government services and remote working are the main proposed benefits of the NBN for Australian users, adult content could be the main driver for uptake,according to a content and apps provider.
Australia’s National Broadband Network received a significant boost with the news that the operators Telsta and SingTel have agreed major deals to transfer parts of their networks to the NBN. As part of the deal, the state owned NBN will pay Telsta $11bn for its copper network, while the SingTel owned Optus network will receive $800m to move customers from its fibre optic network, freeing up its infrastructre for the NBN.
Ericsson has been appointed by Australia’s National Broadband Network to build and operate a fixed wireless LTE network to service the country’s rural areas. Rural households will gain access to the service from mid 2012 with the project to be completed by 2015.
When Australia’s Labor Party-led government announced in April 2009 that it was planning to build a National Broadband Network – at a time when the party was still massively favored to win re-election this year – party members could scarcely have dreamt that the NBN would end up being the slender thread that might just help them retain power.
The announcement from Canberra came on a lazy Sunday afternoon when most of Australia’s movers and shakers were away from their desks – all except Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Telstra Chairwoman Catherine Livingstone, who emerged from Parliament House to announce that they had finally struck a deal for Telstra to sell its fixed-line assets to the National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co.).
Consolidation, convergence and competitionCalls for consolidation in the European mobile market grow louder by the week and four-operator markets look increasingly challenged. Now, those mobile operators that have already built scale seem to be suggesting that there is no option but to expand yet further through diversification.
It is testament to Telstra’s aggressive approach to mobile broadband that an operator in a country of just over 23 million people should rank in the top ten operators worldwide in terms of LTE subscriber numbers. Mike Wright, Telstra’s executive director for networks and access technologies talks to Telecoms.com about the firm’s plans for further enhancing its LTE operation with fresh spectrum and LTE-Advanced capabilities.
Jonathan Bell, VP of Marketing at OpenCloud, discusses how policy and pricing are just two dimensions along which telecoms operators can differentiate their propositions. By adding a third dimension, the service behaviour itself, operators can define and bring true innovation to the market that surpasses the traditional approaches of the past, he says.
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With summer supposedly fast approaching, many look to trim some fat and get in shape for the sunny months. The Informer has never been a huge fan of gyms; in fact his favourite machine in the gym is the one that sells chocolate. Telefonica’s UK arm O2, is one business that is looking to get lean for the holidays, though, and this week it announced that it is to trim 3,500 UK employees.