Australia's $43 Billion Broadband Plan Faces Key Vote

Australia's plan to introduce a 43 billion Australian dollar (US$43 billion) national high-speed Internet network faces a key test next week with lawmakers in Canberra set to debate laws designed to boost competition in the telecommunications market that will allow the scheme to go ahead.

The competition bill, scheduled for debate in the lower house Nov 15, underpins an A$11 billion nonbinding deal reached in June with the country's largest telecommunications company Telstra Corp. to help build the new state-run network, a key election pledge for Prime Minister Julia Gillard's minority center-left Labor government. Telstra Corp. Chief Executive David Thodey wants to finalize the deal by Dec. 20, so it can be put to the country's competition watchdog and Telstra shareholders for approval. The looming deadline heightens the urgency for Canberra to win over key lawmakers and pass the competition bill in the next fortnight before parliament breaks for a long summer hiatus Nov. 25. Australia's booming mining and commodities-fueled economy grates with its lack of development in terms of information technology infrastructure. The country ranks 13th among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, nations for high-speed Internet penetration. It is among the most expensive in the OECD for communications services, especially mobile broadband. In 2007, Australians spent an average US$1,600 a year on communications, a figure exceeded only by Switzerland and Iceland.