NBN BUZZ: The Turnbull version

Turnbull's NBN Co

Malcolm Turnbull has given us the first glimpse of the broadband policy the Coalition will take to the next election. Pressure has been building on the opposition since the contracts with Telstra and Optus were signed to stop criticising the government's policy until it reveals its own – the opposition communications spokesperson has offered us a snippet and there are already some crucial differences with the government's policy.

Speaking at a CEDA lunch in Sydney yesterday, Turnbull said a future Coalition government would deliver vouchers to rural and regional Australians to subsidise the cost of high-speed broadband, renegotiate the agreements with Telstra and Optus with the aim of extending the use of Telstra's copper infrastructure and request that the Productivity Commission complete a cost-benefit analysis to determine the ideal technologies.

However, Telstra would still be structurally separated from the copper.

Business Spectator's Rob Burgess says Turnbull “appears to have knocked out two of the three legs holding up the government's expensive, but world-leading, broadband plan.” The two that Turnbull has addressed are Telstra's structural separation and the savings that flow to the budget from innovations to e-health and distance education.

 “Overall, this is a big step forward for the Coalition in policy terms. It provides a credible policy alternative to the government's popular NBN plan - "almost as good, but for a lot less money" will be the sales pitch at the next election,” says Burgess.

The third leg that Burgess refers to, the one the Coalition hasn't addressed, is the future proofing that only fibre technology offers. The government will argue that fibre is where global communications is ultimately headed and the Coalition is merely deferring cost, not saving it.

Turnbull's announcement comes on the back of the release of Howard government minister Peter Reith's review of the Liberal Party's 2010 campaign. Because the election was so close there's room to claim that just about any negative aspect of the Coalition's campaign cost them the election, but Reith concluded that the opposition didn't just write their broadband policy “at the last minute”, but failed to adequately explain it to the electorate, particularly seats in Tasmania where the NBN was already being rolled out. The new policy was always going to be vastly improved simply because its predecessor was awful.

There were a few things that Reith left out. Firstly, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's confession on the 7:30 Report that he's “not a tech head” endeared him to the electorate about as much as it did to then-host Kerry O'Brien. Secondly, when the Coalition announced its broadband policy on August 10, Abbott wasn't even present – not a good sign.

When the policy was announced, senior Liberal Andrew Robb was sent to babysit the Coalition's then- spokesperson, Tony Smith. Smith was sent to that press conference to undermine Labor's broadband policy and sell the Coalition's, but could only leave the journalists in attendance with the impression that he knew very little about either. He later appeared on Lateline and put in a similarly underwhelming performance, which you can see below.

At least the Coalition has addressed the personnel problem. But Smith's performance speaks of a deeper problem. The Coalition was booted out of office in 2007 for a number of reasons – not all of them their fault – but broadband policy did feature prominently. The Rudd government announced its supercharged NBN policy in April 2009. After dragging their feet on the issue while in government the Coalition had at least 15 months to get up to speed on the issue and put forward a credible alternative policy with conviction.

"I just want to stress that we are absolutely passionately committed to all Australians having access to very fast broadband at an affordable price," said Turnbull. The electorate will rightly think that this is only a recent development.

Fibre, roads, hospitals or reactors

The cost-benefit debate just won't go away. Theoretically the government could approve a study whenever it wanted to allay these concerns, but if it's come this far without one, it's not going to happen.

Still, The Australian's Michael Stutchbury picked up on a survey for the Economics Society of Australia which found that from a sample of 531 economists, 84.9 per cent of them agreed or strongly agreed with this statement: “Prior to approval of any major public infrastructure project, an independent and expert cost-benefit study should be conducted and released publicly”.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he'd prefer to spend the money on roads or hospitals; RMIT Chancellor Ziggy Switkowski says in Business Spectator that the money could also be spent on nuclear energy to reduce our emissions; while Prime Value Asset Management director Ed Shann says in the Australian Financial Review that the government should instead make industry “stand on their own two feet”.

But in support of the NBN, tech writer David Braue outlines the top ten benefits of the NBN in this piece for nineMSN. It's a useful list simply because the benefits of the NBN are usually only covered by the media one at a time.

Education and health are also tackled by Peter Roberts in the AFR: “A clue comes from South Korea, which has announced it will phase out school textbooks entirely by 2015, replacing them with information delivered to tablets and other mobile devices.”

Caught in the filter debate

It turns out that, contrary to previous claims, NBN Co would be capable of implementing the government's internet filter. ZDNet carries this report in which ContentKeeper chief technology officer Mark Riley explains how his company already has the technology in place.

Then the office of Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy announced that in spite of this NBN Co would not implement the filter, it will still be left up to the ISPs.

Two things are curious about this topic. Firstly, as far as I can see, the case for a government-owned wholesaler to be the one responsible for implementing the internet filter is yet to be made (and I'm open to the concept). Secondly, few appear to want this filter.

Wrap up

Tasmanian technology lobby group Digital Tasmania has warned that scammers may be targeting residents in the state and fraudulently offering to sign them up to receive services over the National Broadband Network. The Australian carries this report claiming that one of NBN Co's largest rural satellite retailers, Australian Prime Networks (Activ8me), could be targeted by the administrators of Bill Express. And finally, an office products and services business in Wilunga, South Australia, that was hooked up to the NBN last week has set up a computer for small businesses in the local area to come in and experience the service for themselves.