Australia will soon be catching up in the race for faster broadband speeds, as the five year plan for nationwide speedy broadband gets closer to fruition. Today is D Day for Australian telecommunications companies to share information with the government about their networks. These facts and figures will be used by the federal government in the planning of building the long-desired $4.7 billion broadband network across the nation.

The major companies, including Telstra, Optus, Primus, Vodafone and NextGen are included in those delivering reports to the government today, about details such as were fire cable already exists. Once collected, the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy will need to study and approve the information provided for accuracy.

The data is required in order for accurate information to be passed on to the potential bidders wishing to be involved in building and operating the supposedly-extraordinary supersonic Broadband network. Bidders will have three months to go over the data and put the finishing touches on their proposals before presenting them to the government.

Telstra claimed to have submitted its information early, sometime before August 7, 2008, and been given written confirmation of meeting requirements successfully by the DBCDE. A representative of Communications Minister Conroy has not been able to confirm this however.

Optus and Telstra continue to battle out a war with each other. Incoming Group Managing Director for Public Policy and Communications, David Quilty, said today, "Last week, Optus CEO Paul O'Sullivan claimed Telstra was holding up the NBN by not complying with its network information requirements." Optus responded, "We look forward to assessing the quality of Telstra's information — after its numerous attempts to get it right.”

To give you an idea of Australia’s current status in the worldwide Broadband race, the citizens of Japan may have some of the slowest street traffic in the world, but when it comes to digital traffic they are on top with the fastest speeds internationally – at the cheapest prices, too. Much to our collective shame and frustration, Australia is behind New Zealand, Nepal, Romania and Portugal for average nationwide broadband speeds. Australia, according to www.zdnet.com.au’s recent survey, has an average speed of 6,139kbps while Japan runs at 33,350kps.

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