The new NBN policy’s Achilles heel

Abstract

While most critiques of the Coalition Government’s National Broadband Network (NBN) policy have focussed on the wisdom of its Fibre to the Node technology choice, a more fundamental weakness in its NBN election policy promises to make it a financial debacle if not corrected. This paper spells out the many negative consequences of the Government’s policy to remove the NBN Co’s current monopoly in providing fixed broadband access infrastructure: to the federal budget, to the competition framework in telecommunications, to a forced premature sale of NBN Co, and to the affordable rollout of high-speed broadband access across the nation. The Minister of Communications is urged to correct this policy element rapidly, in the national interest.