Internet Australia CEO Laurie Patton has raised concerns about the “low-subscriber take-up” of the National Broadband Network suggesting that the problem may be exacerbated by consumers not signing up because of uncertainty about the speed of the Internet service delivered by the NBN.
Patton made his comment following the announcement on Monday that industry bodies, the Communications Alliance (CA) and the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA), have proposed the creation of an industry guideline for making representations to consumers about the performance of broadband services, rather than being monitored by the ACCC.
The two industry bodies put forward their joint proposal in response to a discussion paper released by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on broadband speed claims.
In apparent opposition to the idea of the Communications Alliance having oversight of NBN broadband services, Patton says he wants any broadband monitoring program to be independent and “subject to requirements set down by the Government to ensure transparency and accountability”.
{loadposition peter}Patton points out that IA has previously called on the Government to undertake a review of the NBN “so we certainly support the ACCC’s proposed Broadband Performance Monitoring and Reporting Program”.
“It appears that there are issues relating to the interaction between nbn and its re-sellers (RSP’s). This has manifested itself in confusion about service offerings and difficulties in delivery and installation. So it would be essential for any monitoring scheme to be able to identify the responsible party where there is an issue to do with performance,” Patton says.
“One of the benefits of a monitoring and reporting scheme is that it would once and for all establish the speed differentials between the copper-based FTTN network and the technically superior FTTP network.”
Patton reconfirms IA’s criticism of NBN reliance on Telstra’s ageing copper network, pointing out that it will “not be fit-for-purpose in 10 to 15 years’ time (or sooner) and will be very expensive to replace with fibre”.
On concerns about subscriber take-up of NBN services, Patton says that while the NBN rollout has passed three million premises “only one million have actually signed up”.
“Perhaps one of the reasons why NBN is having trouble securing customers is that people are uncertain as to the sort of Internet speeds they are likely to receive, especially given that there have been reports of people moving from their old ADSL service to the NBN and finding their Internet running slower,” Patton says.