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Quigley: Please be patient with the NBN

NBNCo executive chair frustrated by constant questions over NBN service release dates

NBN Co executive chair, Mike Quigley, wants a little more patience from the public when it comes to the National Broadband Network (NBN).

Quigley was grilled by the media on when NBN services will be switched on during a press event at the Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) at Randwick. Tasmanian services are slated for an early- to mid July release but Quigley expressed frustration over constant questions about NBN service release dates.

“I keep stressing to people that this is a very large engineering project,” he told ARN. “People often say, ‘Well, it was announced, why aren’t you connecting customers yet?’ but they don’t ask these questions when a new bridge is announced.

“They don’t expect traffic to be flowing over it the following day.”

Construction for the first five mainland NBN sites will begin next month with Townsville the first to receive the fibre. While Quigley said he expects no problems with garnering retail service providers he would not comment on whether NBN Co has had any discussions with mainland ISPs.

Commenting on the NBN Co’s recent $11 billion deal with Telstra to leverage the telco’s assets and customer base, Quigley said it was a “fair deal”.

He was also confident it will be busines as usual at NBN Co despite a leadership change at the Federal Government last week.

“The new Prime Minister [Julia] Gillard, in fact, interviewed me for this job when I came onto NBN Co,” Quigley said, “So she is a strong supporter of the NBN and she understands what’s going on.”

A new Prime Minister doesn’t mean mandatory Internet filtering plans will be canned.

Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, said the clean-feed is still going ahead.

Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.

More about: ARN, etwork, Federal Government, Quigley, Telstra
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Comments

1

Ben

Tue 29/06/2010 - 17:07

Pay me $2 million a year and I'll be happy to be patient Quigley.

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