NBN will still cost at least $38 billion, with coverage uncertain for some rural areas

A NEW report has revealed that the Coalition is locked in to much of Labor’s promised NBN spending, and that hundreds of thousands of Aussies could still miss out.

Come on, Malcolm, give this country what it deserves.

THE current government’s election promise of only requiring $29.5 billion looks set to be broken, after the Coalition admitted today that up to $38 billion in spending on the National Broadband Network had been locked in by the previous government.

It’s worth noting that the Coalition insisted it didn’t know any of the NBN Co’s contractual obligations before the election, but nonetheless a promise was made to deliver the network ‘sooner’ and ‘cheaper’ than Labor’s original plan.

However if the Coalition is locked into the spending commitments of the previous government, many are asking why it is changing to a technologically inferior version of the NBN?

The first review of the Coalition’s network was released in December and revealed its network would cost at least $40 billion anyway, up massively from their initial predictions and not much less than the original network.

Is Ziggy the right man for the job?

On top of this, the review, reported by The Australian has revealed the remaining 7 per cent of the population, which lie in rural and regional areas could miss out on the new broadband network all together, due to the NBN Co horribly underestimating the demand from these areas. Despite this, the review has ruled out possible plans to build a third satellite, insisting on relying more on wireless towers, rolling out fibre to more areas on the outskirts of cities, and tighter rules around who can access satellite connections. While this is a more cost effective rollout, it could leave a lot of people without access in the areas where satellite connection is required.

It’s no secret that while the original NBN idea looked great on paper, the Labor government and NBN Co less than delivered when it came to actually planning and managing the rollout.

It was hoped that Mr Turnbull would roll out whatever version of the NBN he delivered in a more efficient manner, but that has not yet proved the case.