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Senate broadband hearing - NBN at what cost?

Debate over the National Broadband Network is heating up. Is it economic? Do we want to avoid two major networks? What will be built? How will it be funded?
Written by Phil Dobbie, Contributor

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Debate over the National Broadband Network is heating up. Is it economically feasible? Do we want to avoid two major networks? What will be built? How will it be funded? There are a lot of questions and, as you'll hear from the NBN's Mike Quigley, a lot of those questions still don't have answers.

The Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network started a series of 14 public hearings well before the April announcement on a fibre-to-the-node network. We covered a couple of them back in March on Twisted Wire.

This week we head back to Canberra to summarise the public hearing held by the Committee on 1 October. Surprisingly, there's some interesting discussion.

In a star-studded line up you'll hear from:

  • Richard Murray, Department of Treasury
  • Bernard Wonder, Productivity Commission
  • Peter Downey, Cables Downunder
  • Henry Ergas, economist
  • Anthony Doonan, YLess4U
  • Mike Quigley, NBN Co
  • Robin Eckermann, talking about Smart Grids
  • Simon Lewis, Department of Finance and Deregulation

Next week, the hearings from Melbourne (7 October) and Hobart (8 October).

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