15 Apr 2013

Broadband battle ahead

7:19 am on 15 April 2013

Broadband is looming as a policy battle in the general election in Australia in September.

The federal government is planning to roll out an optical fibre network to more than 90% of homes over the next decade.

But the Opposition says the plan is too ambitious and too expensive. It proposes a compromise fibre to the node scheme that would require the use of the existing copper wire network to carry broadband to individual homes.

Radio New Zealand's Sydney correspondent reports the Opposition's price tag is $A30 billion, significantly less than the government version.

However, many telco analysts point out that download speeds on the opposition version will be significantly slower and its budget takes no account of maintenance costs for the copper network.