I read with interest that ALP have today announced that should they win the upcoming federal election, that they will extend the footprint of the National Broadband Network (NBN) to cover 93% of the Australian population, up from the previous promise of 90% coverage.
| NBN Coverage Increased to 93pc |
It is interesting that at an NBN technical briefing I attended in Melbourne on the 30th of March this year, a number of speakers from NBN Co reaffirmed that after all-but finalising the design concepts for the network, that within the budget and timeframe in question, that the network would rise from 90% to 93% coverage.
I have – as has anyone else who attended that series of briefings – had that number for almost four months. Even as recently as three days ago, I referred to that number in an NBN related tweet. The bottom line is that NBN Co have known for almost four months that this would almost certainly be the case. Why has it taken the government those same four months to make this announcement?
Either they are so detached from consulting with NBN Co that they didn’t know – (which presents questions in itself) – or they thought that it was better to keep that potential vote-winning nugget of information for a “timely” announcement during the campaign.
Naturally.