A third of Australia will be left to rot on struggling cable broadband networks after the Coalition further downscaled the national fibre network.

Some people held out hope that once in power Turnbull would try to steer away from Abbott’s wrecking ball approach to the NBN and find a way to roll out as much fibre as practical.

The Government’s strategic review of the NBN, released on Thursday, actually delivers much less than what Malcolm Turnbull proposed when in opposition. Probably the biggest change is that the government now intends to connect almost a third of the country to the existing Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) cable networks rather than fibre-to-the-premises or even fibre-to-the-node. If pay TV cable runs down your street you can probably spot the problems with this plan. Read more »

While politicians argue over the cost and the mix of technologies used to deliver a national broadband network, one aspect of the infrastructure-building project has become clear since the opposition released its NBN alternative plan: both sides of politics now agree to build it.

It seems more businesses are also in favour than against it, with a survey of 504 businesses by the Australian Institute of Company Directors finding 49 per cent agreed the NBN was “a positive thing for Australia”, compared with 37 per cent who disagreed. Read more »

Forget the NBN – movies streamed almost instantly over the net are here already and a swarm of new entrants are putting a strain on traditional players like DVD stores.

A report released this week by Credit Suisse found that while not yet mainstream in Australia, “IPTV is here” and would continue to drive the take-up of internet video over the next few years.

The newest player in the IPTV market is Quickflix, which has long offered mail order DVD rentals but recently began unlimited online streaming services via PCs, Macs, internet-enabled TVs and the PlayStation 3. Read more »