Internet Australia CEO, Laurie Patton, has told Sky News it’s time for the Prime Minister and Mr Shorten to put politics aside and adopt fibre to the driveway so that NBN can build a 21st Century broadband network.
Describing the current NBN strategy as “crap”, Mr Patton described it as, “cobbled together using Telstra’s ageing copper wires,” and told host Ahron Young that last week we saw NBN launch “the biggest spin cycle since someone invented the automatic washing machine”.
NBN released its latest financial report last week to mixed reactions, mostly focussed on his reported claim that people don’t want fast broadband. Internet Australia has consistently maintained that the issue is not about the internet speeds we need now, but what we will need in the future, a point Mr Patton repeated on Sky News.
Offering hope to internet users, Mr Patton talked about a new technology called ‘fibre to the driveway’ (also known as ‘fibre to the distribution point’ or FTTdp), which he told Sky News was not available when Labor launched the NBN or when Tony Abbott told his then communications minister Mr Turnbull to take the knife to the NBN.