Optus is a foreign owned company that has a mobile network that is badly in need of a major overall. Unlike Telstra who have tipped billions into their NextG Network Optus has failed to invest in their network with the Company now being sued by both business and Governments around Australia because of the failure of their network.
Yet despite this, the company's CEO is trying to spin doctor Telstra right out of the market in the best interests of Optus and not the people of Australia. He is also trying to tell the Federal Government how the NBN should be run when he is struggling to run his own network up against the likes of Telstra and Vodafone.
Optus CEO Paul O'Sullivan works for a Singapore owned company. He claims that to be affordable and financially viable Australia's National Broadband Network will have to become the only connection to Australian homes, and this is best achieved by breaking up Telstra.
Really Mr O'Sullivan? How do you propose to fund the last few metres between a brand new NBN fibre cable in the street and most Australian homes which already have a Telstra copper cable connection that can already already carry the network into the home and into devices attached to the network?
How many gardens do you propose to dig up to lay the new connection into homes Mr O'Sullivan? Or maybe you prefer more visual pollution such as yet more cable strung down a street so that homes can be connected for a few billion dollars less than digging up a driveway.
For example, if you take a suburb like Camberwell in Victoria, or Cremorne in NSW you will find literally thousands of existing homes that already have a broadband connection via Telstra. They also have lawns and driveways that would have to be dug up to lay new fibre cable into a home under your proposal.
The two options are, overhead cables that clutter a landscape, or in ground cable that in most cases will mean the digging up of a drive or lawn.
The cheapest option is overhead cables which many local Council's are trying to get rid off because of visual pollution. At a recent briefing, senior executives of a cable laying company said that the cost of laying new fibre optic cable to a home could be as high as $20,000 per household if it has to go through the ground.
