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