MyRepublic slams Morrow's NBN claims

nbn CEO Bill Morrow’s recent comments that Australians do not want superfast broadband speeds — and wouldn’t take up the services even if the company offered them for free — has drawn some scatological responses.

MyRepublic, the Singapore-based ISP that recently started offering services over the NBN, put out a statement that the company is “calling bullshit” on Morrow’s claim.

The company — which provides a single package offering services at the fastest tier available in the area at a flat $59.99 per month — has signed up 10,000 customers in the first three months of offering services, according to MyRepublic Australia Managing Director Nicholas Demos.

“We said at launch that the telco incumbents and government have pulled the wool over the eyes of Australians for years and kept the conversation focused on data caps instead of broadband speed,” he commented.

“In Singapore, over 90% of our orders are now 1 gigabit (Gbps). In New Zealand, MyRepublic launched the 1Gbps plan two months ago and already 40% of new orders are buying that product.”

Demos said the company wants Australians to be able to take advantage of such blazing fast speeds, and so has started a petition calling on the government to introduce gigabit broadband speeds to a single Australian community.

“If the government won’t do it then we will, just as we have done in New Zealand, Singapore and Indonesia,” he said.

“Enough is enough, our incumbents and government haven’t done anything to ensure consumers are getting the fastest speed internet at an affordable price and we all know that’s what Australian consumers want. We also want to drive the decrease of the NBN’s connectivity virtual circuit charge because this is crippling Australia.”

Meanwhile, Internet Australia CEO Laurie Patton, speaking to Sky News, reacted to Morrow’s comments by describing the current NBN strategy as “crap”, with the network being “cobbled together using Telstra’s ageing copper wires”.

He said Internet Australia has consistently maintained that the main consideration when constructing the network should not be the internet speeds Australians need now, but the speeds that will be needed in the future.

Patton also reiterated Internet Australia’s call for the government to abandon fibre to the node in favour of fibre to the distribution point (also known as fibre to the driveway), a technology that was not available when former prime minister Tony Abbott instructed then communications minister Malcolm Turnbull to gut back Labor’s NBN project.

Image courtesy of Dushan Hanuska under CC

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook