CANBERRA, Australia — The government and Australia’s largest telecommunications company announced a deal Sunday that clears a major hurdle to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s plans for a superfast national broadband network.
The $9.6 billion deal will give the government-owned company building the new network, the National Broadband Network Co., or NBN, access to infrastructure owned by Telstra Corp., which controls the only national communications network.
The deal means NBN will not have to build its own infrastructure - considered one of the largest and most expensive parts of the government’s $34.8 billion plan.
The government will pay Telstra $7.83 billion for access to infrastructure including pits, ducts and wires, and a further $1.74 billion to help Telstra set up a new company to implement the deal.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 06/21/2010