Bill Morrow, chief executive of Vodafone for 19 months, has been appointed CEO of government-owned NBN Co, in charge of building the national broadband network. New face of the NBN: Vodafone CEO Bill Morrow. Credit:Anthony Johnson Mr Morrow's appointment comes as the government releases the first of its four reviews into the project started by Labor. The strategic review conducted with the help of four consulting firms will be made public on Thursday. The government is planning on rolling out a $29.5 billion mixed-technology network – using fibre-to-the-node and copper – to the majority of homes and commercial premises. The previous government started implementing a $37.4 billion model, driven by fibre all the way to 93 per cent of premises.

A confidential briefing document prepared by the previous NBN Co board for the incoming government cast doubt on the alternative plan's financial viability. Mr Morrow, considered a veteran of the telecommunications industry, was previously European CEO of Vodafone Group, running its subsidiaries in Japan and Britain, before taking over Sprint majority-owned Clearwire where he was reportedly in charge of expanding the company's WiMax network throughout the US. He was also CEO of Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

He joined Vodafone Hutchinson Australia in March 2012 amid turmoil as thousands of customers abandoned the under-performing mobile network. Last month, Mr Morrow called for NBN infrastructure to be made available to mobile phone operators to avoid duplicating fixed and mobile infrastructure throughout the country. His departure from the telco, confirmed by Vodafone and NBN Co on Thursday, ends a global executive search that began around the time NBN Co's founding CEO Mike Quigley announced his retirement. Telco analysts watching developments closely welcomed the appointment. Senior analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, Tony Brown, said: "although he has not been responsible for a major fixed-line network rollout, Morrow has a lot of experience in the telco field and has excellent knowledge of the Australian market from his time at Vodafone."

He said Mr Morrow had no obvious local political affiliations and could "hopefully – to some extent at least – operate above the fray and be seen as an honest broker. "The fact that he is not ex-Telstra is also a bonus," he said refering to the appointment of four former Telstra executives to NBN Co. "The idea might well be for Morrow – who has very strong PR and communications skills – to be the public face of NBN Co and to deal with all of the organisational and political issues whilst someone else comes in to focus on the engineering side of the deployment." Analyst Paul Budde said Mr Morrow was a "can-do guy" with great understanding of the industry who would be able to deliver on the vision for the NBN. "I'm confident about it," Mr Budde said.

However, he noted Mr Morrow's was an interesting appointment as he would leave a job unfinished at Vodafone Australia. Loading "He was hired to turn it around. They will have a great problem because that is not finished yet". Mr Morrow will join NBN Co in the new year, the company said in a statement.