Liberal Senator has 'no confidence' in the NBN

The Federal Government, Queensland Government and Telstra were all complicit in "mismanagement" of national broadband infrastructure, the Liberal Party Senator for Queensland said.

MacDonald, who also sits on the Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network, said he has "no confidence in the Federal Minister for Communications in delivering the National Broadband Network."

"If the OPEL contract that the Labor Party cancelled on coming into government had continued, it would have been up and running in Queensland at the moment and we would have had a decent broadband service. But what has [Queensland premier] Ms Bligh said about it?

"We have not even heard a pipsqueak from the Queensland government on the stupidity of the Federal Labor Minister in his mismanagement of national broadband," Macdonald said.

Telstra also copped a rebuke for focusing its investment on lucrative Australian cities in  its100Mbps HFC upgrade plans.

"Telstra is going to cut the ground from underneath the National Broadband Network by looking after the high-paying capital city areas," he said. "But that means that most of my state will not have an adequate broadband system."

Speculation is mounting on all sides that the results of the NBN RFP process will be announced by Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy this week.

No date for an announcement has been officially confirmed.

Earlier this week, telecommunications analyst Paul Budde urged the Government to adopt Fibre-to-the-node (FttN) technology in the NBN "only as a stepping stone to a Fibre-to-the-home (FttH) future".

He also said that Telstra could still be involved in the NBN tender as "a supplier".