The Australian parliament has finally approved a bill to split incumbent Telstra, which will pave the way for the A$35.7bn national broadband network (NBN) rollout.
The bill received Senate approval with 30 votes to 28 after the Labour government managed…
The Australian parliament has finally approved a bill to split incumbent Telstra, which will pave the way for the A$35.7bn national broadband network (NBN) rollout.
The bill received Senate approval with 30 votes to 28 after the Labour government managed to secure the support of the Greens and of an independent senator.
The parliament’s lower house then rubberstamped certain amendments brought by Senate.
At the end of June, Telstra signed a nonbinding agreement to participate in the rollout. Under the terms of the agreement, NBN will pay Telstra about A$11bn (US$9.6bn) in phased payments in return for the decommissioning of Telstra’s copper network and the transfer of its customers to a new fibre-optic network, in order to encourage competition.
It is expected that Telstra shareholders will be asked to approve the structural separation into separate retail and wholesale networks in 2011.
