According to a Cisco CTO, the $43B network plans of a large Cisco customer not in best national interest of Australia

Cisco's Australian subsidiary appears to be in damage control mode over comments made by its CTO.

By Brad Reese on Wed, 12/16/09 - 9:43pm.

Australia appears to be in a tizzy over comments made last week by Cisco's Australian CTO - Kevin Bloch.

According to the Australian press, "Networking experts have discussed concerns that the national broadband network will put the nation on a $43 billion path 'back to the future' by returning incumbent telcos to dominant market positions. Cisco Australia chief technology officer Kevin Bloch said that the NBN Co's minimalist approach to building the network would place an additional investment burden on access seekers that only dominant market players could bear. Mr Bloch's criticism centred on the NBN Co's choice, revealed early yesterday, to build the network around a standard G-PON (Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network), which lack technical smarts for routing data called 'layer 3' services. While Cisco stood to gain more by selling additional networking equipment to access seekers, Mr Bloch said it was not in the national interest to choose the path NBN Co had chosen."

Listen to the entire audio tape of the comments made by Bloch as well as other members of the panel (whom appeared at Australia's Realising Our Broadband Future conference).

Les Williamson - Vice President Cisco Australia and New Zealand, quickly went into damage control mode according to yet another Australian press report:

"Comments last week from our CTO where made in good faith and the national interest but clearly did not take into account all the complexities of the process nor the actual industry consultancy in play. Cisco globally is supportive of the process and is engaged. Cisco supports the federal government’s NBN vision and strategy as well as the process it has created in order to realise this critical initiative. Cisco will continue to work collaboratively with NBN Co, the federal government and the industry to deliver a network that will maximizes the benefits of broadband to consumers, businesses and key industry sectors such as health and education."

The building of Australia's super fast National Broadband Network (NBN Co Limited), was announced on April 7 of this year.

NBNCo is jointly owned by the Government as well as the private sector and will invest up to $43 billion over 8 years to build Australia's national broadband network: