blog You may recall that several weeks ago, mid-tier telcos M2 and Vocus announced they would merge into a large company with a market capitalisation in excess of $3 billion, in a move that will further cement M2’s place as Australia’s fourth-largest broadband player and further consolidate the already minimalist Australian telecommunications industry. But what was not widely reported at the time was that the merged pair of telcos are also considering pursuing a Fibre to the Basement rollout to compete with the NBN company and TPG, which are already deploying this kind of infrastructure. The Sydney Morning Herald reports (we recommend you click here for the full article):

One option on the table for Vocus is the construction of a fibre-to-basement service, similar to that offered by TPG, which would compete against the national broadband network … “There’s a number of ways to look at user aggregation and FTTB is one of them,” [Vocus CEO James Spenceley] said. “We’ll be looking at it as we bring the businesses together.”

If Vocus/M2 do end up deploying FTTB throughout Australia, there is no doubt this would further undercut the finances of the National Broadband Network, as well as causing further chaos for apartment-dwellers throughout Australia’s cities. You only have to look at this recent article published by iTnews — in which the author has no less than three FTTB solutions to the bottom of their apartment block — to see how chaotic the situation is. Adding yet another player will confuse people further. Yet, that is the mess that the Coalition’s Multi-Technology Mix will leave Australia in. At least we’ll be able to say: I told you so.