The government of Australia and one of the largest telecommunications companies in the country announced Sunday an agreement that clears final hurdle in the plans of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to give Australia a national network with super fast broadband.
In announcing the agreement, Rudd said the installation of the new network will make broadband Internet service is faster, cheaper and more efficient.
The government last year announced a plan to offer broadband speeds up to 100 megabytes per second to 90% of Australian households, schools and shops in a period of eight years through fiber optic cables that are connected directly buildings.
The new agreement by 11,000 million Australian dollars (9,600 million) will give the state enterprise, Co. National Broadband Network (NBN), the task of erecting the new network and give access to existing infrastructure and belonged to Telstra Corp., which controls the only nationwide telecommunications network in the country.
The deal means that NBN will not have to build their own infrastructure, considered one of the most extensive and most expensive government plan, which will cost 43,000 million Australian dollars.
Telstra may also pass on to customers current network of copper wire and cable to the fiber optic network. Telstra was privatized but remains a highly regulated business, in order to promote competition with other phone companies that rent access to their existing copper wire network.
The government wants Telstra to further dilute its market dominance by dividing its business and goats, and has submitted bills to promote this measure.
The company is resisting this, saying it has a duty to their shareholders to keep the company intact.
The agreement announced on Sunday it still needs the approval of the shareholders of Telstra and the approval of the regulator of competition in Australia.
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