Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Coming from one of the proponents of one of the various technologies, it comes as no surprise to see these claims. They have been around for years. But let me just explain to the chamber how wireless broadband operates. It does not actually fly through the air all the way from computer to computer. That may come as a shock to you, Senator Minchin. What actually happens is that it gets as close as it can to its destination, gets sucked down into the ground—and guess how it travels once it goes underground? Via a fibre optic cable! Let me be clear about this: LTE, the future evolution of 3G, actually works off a fibre backbone. What we are building with the national broadband network is the biggest fibre backbone you have ever seen anywhere in the world as a proportion of the population—98 per cent of the population will have access to the fibre backbone. So I appreciate the question from Senator Minchin on the portfolio. I am very glad to explain to the— (Time expired)