It's bizarre how a monopoly can lead to fair competition and how fair competition can lead to a monopoly. That's NBN for you. Credit: Rodolfo Clix, file photo (www.sxc.hu)

The Comparative Carriers Coalition has slammed Malcolm Turnbull's plans of ignoring Australians covered by the HFC networks in the Coalition's rollout of their NBN alternative.

Unlike the mining industry, which complains publicly and bitterly over any encroachment and interference to its industry, Australia's technology companies keep all of their complaining behind closed doors. Just about every technology company in Australia supports the NBN in its current form (I can think of one that has publicly said otherwise) but the general public would be forgiven for not knowing it such is the reluctance of companies to get involved with the politics.

However, this situation has changed now that the Competitive Carriers Coalition, a group which includes heavy-hitting internet companies, Macquarie Telecom, iiNet, NextGen, AAPT, Vodafone Hutchison Australia and Adam Internet has released a statement titled, "Turnbull must forget HFC fantasy."

Matt Healy, Chairman of the Competitive Carriers Coalition believes that Malcolm Turnbull's alternative rollout plan for the NBN would significantly undermine competition in the industry and adversely affect consumer outcomes. "These comments ignore the reality that such a proposal would mean that for 30 per cent of the population there would be no effective competitive broadband market." said Matt Healy.

The CCC believes the idea of using the HFC as a key element of delivering national broadband would fail because: The network is not and cannot practically be made available for wholesale access by a competitor

It does not have the capacity to deliver a service capable of competing with what Telstra would be able to deliver over its other monopoly copper network

It would create an un-level playing field where Telstra has all the market power that it has used to stifle competition in the past, and more

Competitors have neither the resources nor the interest in completely re-organising their businesses in order to access a network that would be inferior to that available to Telstra The net result would be the collapse of national broadband competition.

Earlier this week, Richard Chirgwin, on behalf of ABC Tech, also illustrated how there are already grave monopoly concerns regarding the Coalition's broadband policy. The equipment used in its preferred 'Fibre-to-the-Node' technology all has to come from the same supplier. Furthermore, the technology used to connect customers to the internet must all come from a monopoly provider as multiple systems conflict with each other. Both of these factors are likely to inflate prices.

All of this flies in the face of the Coalition's promise to let the free market drive broadband adoption in order to lower prices through competition.

Under the present plans, NBNco acts as a monopoly wholesaler, but any company in the country is allowed access to premises on equal terms - whether it's using fibre, fixed wireless or satellite.