In March 2007, the Labour Party launched their National Broadband Network policy in the lead up to the Federal election in October. Since then, not everything has gone to plan for Senator Stephen Conroy's strategy.

The building of a National Broadband Network is a great strategy. Broadband was something the Howard Government never understood and investing in a 21st century infrastructure was always going to be critically important to this nation's success going forward.

However Senator Conroy's pledge to start rolling on the national broadband network by the end of the year is now in tatters because of another extension to the bid deadline and a potential trebling of the expected construction costs. Proposals for the network were initially due on the 25th of July, but last month that was extended to be 12 weeks after the release of Telstra's network information. As yet that is still to occur and with a date yet to be set it is more likely to be mid 2009 before any contracts are signed and the network build starts.