Tony Abbott, in turning his back on the $43 billion National Broadband Network will leave Australia languishing in the ‘Dark Ages of broadband’, Comscentre’s Ben Shipley says.
Tony Abbott has committed the Coalition to dismantling Labor’s National Broadband Network if elected in August, leaving the trial NBN sites as the only areas outside of greenfield estates serviced by fibre optic internet capable of 100Mbit connection speeds. Comscentre managing director Ben Shipley has urged Tony Abbott’s Liberal party to spell out its alternative plans for improved broadband services after vowing to scrap the nation’s biggest ever infrastructure project.
“We’ve got a very clear and concise plan from the Labor Party but we’ve got nothing from the opposition except a threat to shut down the NBN,” Mr Shipley said.
“Are they going to throw away the billions that have already been spent and take us back to a Telstra monopoly, or are they going to do nothing and leave Australia like a Third World country?
“Without the NBN, Australia will stay in what has now become the Dark Ages of broadband.”
Mr Shipley said affordable high-speed broadband would decrease business costs, increase productivity and give people the ability to work from home.
“Australia is well behind the rest of the world in relation to broadband affordability and high-speed connectivity and that has huge implications for business,” he said.
Additionally, plans to shift Australia’s growing population away from the cities and into the regions would fail without the NBN, Mr Shipley said.
“The only way to attract the lawyers, doctors, IT professionals, innovators, manufacturers and other professions into the regions is for these people to be able to easily communicate with our cities and the rest of the world, and that means fast, affordable and reliable broadband,” he said.
“Without it, that population plan is a pipedream.”
