What will Cunliffe's counter-offer be?

Communications Minister David Cunliffe has slammed the National Party's broadband plan. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Some interesting feedback around the blogosphere to the news yesterday of National's plan to inject $1.5 billion of taxpayers' money into a fibre optic network that would reach 75 per cent of the population by 2014.

As Russell Brown points out, it's an ambitious timeframe considering it will involve the undergrounding of thousands of kilometres of cable. Perhaps too ambitious?

David Farrar is celebrating it, because it is, as he sees it, a bold plan that's "not in an area you normally expect National to lead".

Xero chief executive Rod Drury, who initially got the open-access fibre network debate started last year is naturally impressed.

Communication minister David Cunliffe's grumpy response masks what will surely be a great deal of nervousness over the potential upside the plan has for National in election year.

"National's plan risks not only a new round of regulatory failure but would also be a huge waste of taxpayers' money due to the lack of market leverage and the ability of the incumbent to take subsidies straight to the bottom line," said Cunliffe in a statement.

The exact same argument is playing out across the Tasman as Australia prepares to build its own partially public funded fibre network - letting Telstra in as a partner would just reinforce the company's monopoly, people say.

But here's the thing - Labour and National both see the future of broadband as fibre optic cables to most New Zealand businesses, institutions and homes. Both agree that Telecom and its rivals alone won't invest enough to achieve that goal in a reasonable timeframe.

But only one party has actually gone ahead and proposed a solution to this problem. Since the Digital Summit late last year, there's been a lot of frustration over the gap between the Government's rhetoric around the future of broadband and the action it is willing to take to make its plans a reality.

National has shrewdly exploited that frustration at a time when kiwis are genuinely worried about the future direction of the economy and the country in general. Given Cunliffe's same underlying belief in fibre as the ultimate end, I wouldn't be surprised to see an alternative plan laid on the table with a significant public-funding element.

What form will it take? Who knows, Cunliffe has already backed himself into a corner by panning Key's broadband plan. What are the other options?

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