Business Spectator
25 Jun 2008
Citigroup analysts have calculated that $770 billion needs to be spent on Australian infrastructure over the next 10 years, and without doubt the most important piece of this is the national broadband network.
But as things stand the government is in danger of getting no bids at all for its broadband tender.
The key player right now is not Telstra, but Singapore Telecom. Telstra definitely wants to build and operate a new fibre broadband network (but only on its own terms) but does Singtel, really?
After its debacle over the 'Broadband Connect' Opel joint venture with Elders, industry talk is that SingTel is now wavering over fibre-to-the-node (FTTN).
SingTel made a dreadful mistake by doing a cosy deal with the former minister, Helen Coonan, for $958 million of government funding just a few months before an election that everyone knew she and her party were going to lose. Sure enough, the new minister, Stephen Conroy, quickly found an excuse to cancel that deal and the Singaporeans were made to look foolish.
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