Here are a few I have come across the last week or so. Note: Each link is followed by a title and a few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.
General Comment
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Quite a busy week with the big news being that apparently electronic prescribing is really getting a wriggle on and will be available in just weeks – time will tell.
Additionally discussion of the COVIDSafe app has ramped up with brickbats and bouquets all round.
Enjoy the browse.
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http://medicalrepublic.com.au/e-prescribing-to-launch-by-end-of-the-month/31712
17 July 2020
E-scripts up and running by end of the month
Clinical COVID-19 Pharmacy Practice Management
Broad use of e-scripts will be available for GPs in all states and territories except Queensland by the end of next week.
The Department of Health has told The Medical Republic that the government’s plan to fast-track the implementation of electronic prescribing, as part of their COVID-19 response, was being rolled out in the coming weeks.
But there is still no word on when e-scripts will be available in Queensland, the only state where the electronic prescribing of medication remains illegal.
E-scripts will allow prescribers to generate an electronic script that is then sent to the patient, or their carer, by text or email.
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Qld agencies told to review public datasets after de-identification lapses
By Justin Hendry on Jul 16, 2020 11:53AM
Several datasets found to be at 'real risk of re-identification'.
Queensland government agencies have been urged to review all published data and identify datasets containing de-identified data, after the de-identification practices of two unnamed agencies were found to be lacking.
The state’s Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) made the recommendation in a report this week that said there was a “real risk of re-identification” in several public datasets at one of the agencies.
The report, titled ‘Privacy and public data: Managing re-identification risk’, revealed that three of the four public de-identified datasets belonging to the agency that were examined were at “significant risk of re-identification”.
The OIC assessed two of the four datasets as having “medium to high risk” of re-identification, which could disclose the personal information of individuals in breach of the state’s Information Privacy Act 2009.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/gp-telehealth-corporate-vows-fight-medicare-changes
GP telehealth corporate vows to fight Medicare changes
Doctors on Demand says the restriction is about "protecting GPs, not patients".
13th July 2020
A telehealth corporate is vowing to fight new restrictions on MBS phone and video items, claiming they are about “protecting GPs, not patients”.
From next week, Medicare items for GP telehealth consultations will be restricted to practices with an existing face-to-face relationship with the patient claiming the rebate.
The announcement on Friday (see below) has been hailed by the RACGP and AMA, who had been arguing the items were encouraging a rise in businesses marketing telehealth directly to the public with no links to patients’ usual GPs.
But telehealth providers are unhappy with the move and are arguing they have been blindsided at a time when COVID-19 cases are starting to track upwards once more.
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/covidsafe-app-a-2-million-failure-bowen-20200713-p55boq.html
COVIDSafe app a '$2 million failure', Bowen says
By Jonathan Kearsley
July 13, 2020 — 6.24pm
Labor's Chris Bowen has criticised the government's coronavirus tracing app, which is yet to find any close contacts of an infected person who had not already been identified manually.
In Victoria, where there have been 1437 cases in the past week, and NSW, where there is an outbreak associated with a pub at Casula in Sydney's south-west, no contacts had been identified solely through the COVIDSafe app, state health department sources said.
In Queensland and South Australia, no one diagnosed with the virus had downloaded the app while in Western Australia there had been no cases of community transmission to make it useful.
"It's played no role in effectively finding anybody who's been exposed to COVID19 ... this is a $2 million failure," Mr Bowen, Labor's health spokesman, told Nine News.
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https://itwire.com/health/bowen-describes-covidsafe-app-as-a-waste-of-$2-million.html
Tuesday, 14 July 2020 11:32
Bowen describes COVIDSafe app as a waste of $2 million
Australian Labor Party health spokesman Chris Bowen has labelled the COVIDSafe app a $2 million failure, saying that despite all the exhortations to people to download it, it had had no role and had therefore failed.
"We've been constructive in the Labor Party, we said we would download the app," Bowen told the ABC's Radio National Drive program on Monday.
"And, you know, we didn't stand in the way we were very constructive in it. Ultimately, the government was responsible for the design and all the features and it's a statement of fact that it hasn't detected anybody yet."
When the app was launched, 6696 Australians had been identified as having the coronavirus. After that, 926 cases were registered up until 1 July but only 40 had the COVIDSafe app installed and allowed health officials access to close contact data.
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COVIDSafe app ‘an expensive dud’
David Swan 10.40am July 14, 2020
Labor’s government services spokesman Bill Shorten has slammed the government’s COVIDSafe app, after it was revealed Victoria and New South Wales have had no contacts identified through the app, despite it being branded by Prime Minister Scott Morrison as the nation’s ticket to freedom.
“Labor gave support in principle if the app could help make us safer, but I have to say it looks like an expensive dud, another IT bungle,” Mr Shorten told Sky News last night.
The app has been downloaded more than 6.6 million times.
COVIDSafe, which was made available to Australians in April, was developed to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
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Has the COVIDSafe app been used in the recent outbreaks?
By Maddy King
It hasn't been smooth-sailing for the COVIDSafe app.
Despite the recent efforts of a few TikTok users to endorse the app (we chatted to one on Tuesday's show), there's some big lingering questions about its effectiveness.
With the recent outbreaks in Victoria and NSW, we want to know: how is the app being used? Has it helped contain the virus in recent hotspots? And have all the tech issues been fixed?
As of yesterday, COVIDSafe had been downloaded 6.65 million times - a bit over 25 per cent of the population.
That's plateaued since the app was launched, and short of the initial target the government was aiming for - 40 per cent of the population.
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Government says coronavirus app has identified 200 contacts, as Victorian authorities say it has not helped them
By political reporter Stephanie Borys
15 July, 2020
The COVIDSafe app is yet to provide any assistance to Victorian health authorities tasked with contact tracing, as the state grapples to contain outbreaks of the coronavirus.
Key points:
- The Federal Government says 200 contacts have been identified using the COVIDSafe app
- Victorian authorities say they have not found a case with the app that was not also found through other methods
- NSW authorities say the app has not been a major feature in their contact-tracing efforts
New figures reveal more than 300 people with coronavirus have the app on their phone and have granted officials permission to sift through their data.
However, Victoria's Chief Medical Officer Brett Sutton said the information logged by the app provided no information that was not already collected through traditional contact tracing.
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July 15 2020 - 8:00AM
Health Minister Greg Hunt says COVIDSafe app has identified more than 200 cases
Kathryn Lewis
The COVIDSafe app labelled a "$2 million failure" by the Opposition has helped authorities identify more than 200 cases, the federal government says.
Health Minister Greg Hunt rejected claims the app had failed, and said it "does what it was intended to do".
"That is to find people who are within proximity of others for a period of 15 minutes, which was the medical advice within a distance of 1.5m," he told Nine's Today Show on Wednesday.
However, no states or territories have reported the tracing app has found any cases not already identified through manual contact tracing.
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Health Minister says COVIDSafe is no dud while claiming 200 cases identified
As officials from other states help with 'remote' COVID-19 tracing.
By Asha Barbaschow | July 16, 2020 -- 05:35 GMT (15:35 AEST) | Topic: Innovation
Earlier this week, former Opposition Leader Bill Shorten labelled the federal government's COVID-19 contact tracing app an "expensive dud", with no cases reported as identified through COVIDSafe.
"Labor gave support in principle, if the app could help make us safer," the now Shadow Minister for Government Services said. "But I have to say, it looks like an expensive dud, another IT bungle."
Rejecting there were any failures with the app in improving contact tracing efforts, Minister for Health Greg Hunt said that was "incorrect".
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Local COVID-19 vaccine researchers warned of cyber attack threat
By Emma Koehn
July 17, 2020 — 11.45pm
Data security experts are warning Australian researchers working on coronavirus vaccines and treatments to remain vigilant as global hackers try to access their work.
Industry insiders said Australia's world-leading research made it a target for state and non-state actors, with experts warning hackers aren't just looking for vaccine and treatment blueprints, but also for information about supply chain logistics, including plans for vaccine production and information on strategies for procuring supply.
"Researchers are on the front lines: they will be targeted because they are the ones developing new ideas, new capabilities and, in a pandemic, the possible solution," said Professor Lesley Seebeck, chief executive of the Cyber Institute at the Australian National University.
"Australia has research and trials underway that will be of interest to bad actors, both state and non-state."
The warnings come as the US, UK and Canada issued statements on Thursday accusing Russian intelligence of launching cyber attacks on companies working on COVID-19 projects.
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16 July 2020
Telehealth restrictions ‘jeopardise sexual and reproductive health’
Sexual and reproductive healthcare groups are calling on the government not to halt telehealth funding for their services, saying it will hinder access.
Last week, Health Minister Greg Hunt announced that the temporary Medicare Benefits Schedule item numbers issued during the COVID-19 pandemic would be restricted to GPs with an existing and continuous relationship with a patient, from July 20.
But in an open letter to the minister, members from a suite of sexual and reproductive services, including Marie Stopes Australia, state family planning organisations and the Australasian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine (ASHM), expressed their dismay.
Telehealth funding is vital for patients to have access to services not currently provided by their regular GP, including medical termination of pregnancy, STI testing, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for HIV prevention, the authors say.
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https://www.zdnet.com/article/robo-debt-class-action-on-track-for-september-21/
Robo-debt class action on track for September 21
Friday's interlocutory hearing will continue next week, where Justice Lee's team will wade through 'two lever arch folders'-worth of legal and professional privilege claims made by the Commonwealth.
By Asha Barbaschow | July 17, 2020 -- 06:57 GMT (16:57 AEST) | Topic: Legal
The Federal Court of Australia on Friday held an interlocutory hearing in a case brought on by Gordon Legal against the Commonwealth of Australia, relating to the Centrelink Online Compliance Intervention (OCI) scheme, colloquially known as robo-debt.
In November, Gordon Legal launched the robo-debt class action on behalf of five representative applicants and hundreds of thousands of people who are included in the case as group members.
The essence of the applicants' case is that debts raised by robo-debt are unlawful, and all recipients should be compensated by the federal government.
During Friday's hearing, access to around 83 documents covered by either public interest immunity (PII) or legal professional privilege (LPP) were discussed, with Justice Michael Lee hearing that those documents would fill "about two lever arch folders".
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https://ajp.com.au/news/tassie-is-joining-the-brigade-of-e-scripts/
‘Tassie is joining the brigade of e-scripts.’
One of Tasmania’s first e-prescriptions was dispensed at TerryWhite Chemmart Prospect Vale in Launceston last week, the Pharmacy Guild Tasmanian branch has announced.
This script was part of the token model, which provides patients with a “token”—usually in the form of a QR code—sent to their mobile device or their email.
The pharmacy, owned by Christine Timms, belongs to a ‘community of interest’ that includes pharmacies and general practices in the Launceston area.
AJP understand this is currently the only such community of interest in Tasmania.
“Tassie is joining the brigade of e-scripts. It’s actually happening, and we want to make sure the community recognises doctors may mention it to them,” Monique Mackrill, Tasmanian branch director at the Pharmacy Guild, told AJP.
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myGov digital ID integration in limbo as DTA misses target rollout date
By Justin Hendry on Jul 15, 2020 7:12AM
Functionality delayed after pilot uncovers usability concerns.
The Digital Transformation Agency has pushed back the rollout of the government’s new digital identity credential on the myGov online services portal after a pilot highlighted problems with the integration.
Last year, the agency’s head of digital identity Jonathon Thorpe said the myGovID credential would replace myGov’s existing two-factor authentication system before the end of the 2019-20 financial year.
myGovID, which is offered by the Australian Taxation Office, allows citizens to create a digital identity that can be reused across a range of online services and will be the government’s go-to identity credential moving forward.
It currently works like a digital equivalent of the 100 point ID on a number of services, with citizens able to verify identity documents like passports, driver’s licences and Medicare cards in real-time.
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Telstra Health’s Michael Donnelly: data to predict residents’ deterioration to become the norm – 60,000 beds in the residential space and growing
Published on July 15, 2020
Instant messaging to families that is recorded in your clinical software, technology to predict which residents will deteriorate, and digital tools to assess if a resident may have coronavirus – it’s the future of aged care, according to Telstra Health’s Head of Aged & Disability, Michael Donnelly.
Last week in The SOURCE, we reported that Telstra Health was back in the game. This week, Michael tells us how COVID has fast-tracked their plans for the future.
With a background in accounting and marketing, he has spent the past 12 years immersed in aged care software – seven under Telstra Health’s former platform iCareHealth and five following its buyout by the telecommunications company.
Over 450 clients and growing
Its Aged and Disability platform now has 450 residential care and home care providers on its books, covering over 60,000 aged care beds and more than 200 home care clients.
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Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:50
Telehealth, new technologies help testing for diseases, including COVID 19: Flinders Uni researchers
In the “pandemic age” of telehealth and new technologies, remote site lab or point-of-care (POC) testing of biofluids is a potentially "rapid and non-invasive way" to test for most diseases - including COVID-19 - say scientists at South Australia’s Flinders University.
Now scientists at Flinders University have run tests on the bioprobe industry, recommending the potential of a “novel group of bioprobes with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties” - -called AIEgens - as being the “best way forward” to deliver accurate clinical biomarkers.
In a new journal article, the researchers recommend rapid and widespread rollout of low-cost, accurate AIE bioprobe applications which can pick up disease biomarkers in very low concentrations.
"AIE bioprobes with portable device are an exciting new method for detecting biomarkers in bodily fluids," says Flinders University Professor Youhong Tang, from the Australia-China Centre for Personal Health Technologies.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/telehealth-bulkbilling-requirement-hits-gp-incomes
Telehealth bulk-billing requirement hits GP incomes
Telehealth bulk-billing rules are hurting private-billing practices, new data suggest
16th July 2020
Some 70% of GPs working in affluent suburbs have lost income during the coronavirus pandemic, compared to just half in the most disadvantaged areas, new figures reveal.
Researchers are blaming requirements to bulk-bill the temporary telehealth Medicare items for the disparity, which was uncovered by the University of Melbourne’s MABEL (Medicine in Australia Balancing Employment and Life) study.
The data, based on a survey of 2250 GPs, showed roughly two-thirds of the specialty were losing income compared to last year.
But there were wide variations around the country, with most GPs in rural areas reporting their income had either stayed the same or increased during the pandemic.
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GPs count cost of pandemic-driven telehealth surge
GPs say they have taken a hit to earnings as the pandemic forces patients to take up bulk-billed telehealth over more expensive face-to-face consultations.
A University of Melbourne report revealed one-fifth of GPs and 42 per cent of other specialists surveyed had their income drop 30 per cent since the crisis.
Almost one-third of surgeons and anaesthetists said they had lost 50 per cent of their income or more in April and May.
The research, led by Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research academic Anthony Scott, took in 2235 doctors; just over a third said they felt very or moderately financially stressed due to loss of income.
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Saturday, 11 July 2020 07:47
Australia's open-source CMS held up well under sustained COVID-19 traffic: claim
The Australian Government's Drupal-based content management system GovCMS, built by Boston-based open source firm Acquia, has been able to withstand the increase in traffic that has been thrown at it during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Finance claims.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Finance said at the peak of the pandemic the platform handled 100,000 page views a minute, 187,000 concurrent uses and two billion hits in a month.
Acquia won the contract to build the CMS for the government in 2014 and the following year it went live. Up to 450 websites are being developed, with the total contract value being up to $24 million over the four-year life of the deal.
The Finance statement said the website of the Department of Health saw a 760% increase in traffic, with up to six million visits a day, while Services Australia saw a 650% increase in traffic.
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Artificial intelligence technology set to reduce indigenous ear disease
Indigenous children in Australia suffer from the highest rates of chronic ear disease in the world, but artificial intelligence and a smartphone app are set to ‘close the gap’ on hearing loss that leads to lifelong inequalities.
University of Sydney and Westmead Hospital have trialled the AI solution that will use a database of more than 10,000 pictures of Aboriginal childrens’s ears, collected over the last 10 years. Nurses will use an otoscope to take a picture of the patient’s ear which will be compared with the database of pictures via an algorithm in a smartphone app.
The AI technology will then predict the condition of the ear and help nurses quickly and accurately diagnose the disease.
Chief investigator and fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Narinder Singh said the new solution could help to reduce inequalities caused by the “critical” health issue
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Emergency department diagnosis reference set
URI https://healthterminologies.gov.au/fhir/ValueSet/sctau-reference-set-32570481000036109
Version 20200630
Publisher Australian Digital Health Agency
Status active
Emergency department diagnosis reference set
Terminology to support the recording of diagnosis in Emergency department settings within Australia.
This reference set supports the accurate and unambiguous recording of information relating to a patient diagnosis at the point of discharge from an Emergency department. This may be used to support the communication of information to other clinicians involved in that patient's care.
Target client: Australian Emergency department clinical information implementations.
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Jail for former registrar who hacked court system, issued fake order
By Adam Cooper
July 16, 2020 — 1.16pm
A woman who exploited her job as a court registrar to hack into a computer system and issue a false intervention order against a friend's ex-partner has been jailed for at least 13 months.
Sara Borg had a front-row seat to the administration of justice for 10 years as a court registrar but misused that position of trust in October 2018 by posing as a lawyer in emails she sent for a friend involved in a custody dispute with his former partner.
On October 25 of that year Borg was working at Werribee Magistrates Court when at lunchtime she insisted a colleague take a break, locked the empty court room and used other registrars' log-in details to create an intervention order. She then used a magistrate's judicial number to issue it.
Borg sent the order to South Australian police for it to issue against the woman and in the following days travelled interstate posing as her friend's lawyer. Had the order been served the woman would have had to give her child to Borg's friend but police and court staff became suspicious and traced the order to its origin.
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Queenslanders breaking down language barriers and scanning X-rays with AI
By Stuart Layt
July 13, 2020 — 12.00am
Two new artificial intelligence projects designed to provide better services in hospitals are the first promising shoots out of Queensland's newly formed AI Hub.
The state government launched the $5.5 million hub in May with the mission to develop AI projects within Queensland.
Now the AI Hub has announced two projects out of its first collaborative workshop, the Medical Datathon, where 16 teams of experts from many different fields came together to solve problems.
Queensland AI Hub Director Dr Kelvin Ross said there was a broad focus on using data to improve treatment for patients with COVID-19.
“We had a COVID focus, but we know that beyond COVID and the things we do there we can apply to the other diseases,” Dr Ross said.
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Murrumbidgee Local Health District to roll out new HIT deployments with Alcidion
Dean Koh | 15 Jul 2020
Murrumbidgee Local Health District (MLHD), in New South Wales (NSW), Australia has signed two contracts with healthcare software solutions provider Alcidion to continue use of Alcidion’s Miya Precision platform, including the Miya MEMRe mobile application and for related professional services.
Earlier this year, MLHD elected to use Miya Precision for a period of 12 months from January 1, 2020. Two contracts confirming the scope of intended use at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital and an extended scope of professional services for this initial 12 months have now been signed.
The confirmed contracted scope of initial deployment includes implementing a COVID-19 monitoring dashboard for Miya Precision, designed to enable the monitoring of COVID-19 positive, and at-risk patients, both in-hospital and remotely. Miya MEMRe will also be rolled out to up to 200 clinicians, which will reduce the risk of infection from using shared devices. Miya Precision and MEMRe are drawing on data from the state-wide electronic medical record.
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Murrumbidgee LHD signs contracts for Miya Precision
Highlights:
- Contracts signed for Murrumbidgee LHD for continued use of Miya Precision and Miya MEMRe
- COVID-19 and out-of-hospital monitoring capabilities incorporated into the solution
- Miya MEMRe to be rolled out to up to an additional 200 doctors
- Total contract value of $686k for 12 months from Jan 2020
Melbourne, Australia - Alcidion Group
Limited (ASX: ALC) is pleased to announce it has signed two contracts with
Murrumbidgee Local Health District (LHD) to continue use of Alcidion’s Miya
Precision platform, including the MEMRe mobile application and for related
professional services.
Earlier this year, Murrumbidgee LHD elected to use Miya Precision for a period
of 12 months from 1 January 2020. Their intention to do so was announced to the
ASX in April and the value of purchase orders received to that date were
included as part of our reported quarterly total of new sold work. Two
contracts with a combined total contract value of $686K, confirming the scope
of intended use at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital and an extended scope of
professional services for this initial 12 months have now been signed.
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Alcidion signs new contract extension with ACT Health for IT support services
Melbourne, Australia - Alcidion Group Limited (ASX: ALC) is
pleased to announce it has renewed its ongoing support services contract with
ACT Health for two further years. The contract extension is valued at $1.3
million and effective from 1 January 2021.
The contract extension will see Alcidion continue to provide ongoing technical
support services to ACT Health for their integrated patient management system.
This contract does not cover support of the Alcidion product suite including
Miya Precision, Patientrack and Smartpage which are covered under separate
arrangements.
This is an extension to a long standing services contract with ACT Health, the
last extension to which was signed in 2018.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/practice/app-review-heartpedia
App review: Heartpedia
Explain heart conditions with 3D models
16th July 2020
If you have any paediatric patients with congenital heart defects, Heartpedia is a very useful app you might want to have on your phone — or on your patient’s phone.
It lets doctors explain nine conditions using a 3D model on their phone that can be rotated, zoomed into or even sliced open for an interior view.
The defects covered by the app include ventricular septal defect, coarctation of the aorta and Ebstein’s anomaly.
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Telcos push NBN Co for bandwidth extension
By Zoe Samios
July 17, 2020 — 8.45am
Telco providers are asking NBN Co to extend the bandwidth boost, which has allowed them to cope with the surge in consumer traffic during the coronavirus pandemic, warning that service quality could suffer once the extra capacity is removed.
NBN Co provided 40 per cent more bandwidth to telcos free of charge in early March to help them adapt to large surges in consumer usage caused by the crisis.
The offer has been extended until August 19, but Telstra, TPG Telecom, Optus Singtel, Vocus Group and Aussie Broadband want an extension or long-term solution to avoid reduced quality in services or price increases for their customers.
"In March, NBN Co stepped up ahead of the anticipated surge in customer demand to lift network capacity," Optus' vice-president of regulatory and public affairs Andrew Sheridan said. "Demand hasn’t abated so we need to maintain current capacity so we can continue to meet customers' needs."
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Aussie Broadband ratchets up pressure on NBN Co over looming bandwidth bonus expiry
By Ry Crozier on Jul 16, 2020 11:09AM
Sees a permanent rise in internet use post COVID.
Aussie Broadband has warned NBN prices could rise - or service levels fall - if a bandwidth bonus applied by NBN Co over the COVID period is fully withdrawn on August 19.
Managing director Phillip Britt said that customers had “settled into a pattern of using about 10 percent more bandwidth than originally predicted pre-COVID”.
This reflected a permanent change in customers’ internet behaviour, one that retail service providers (RSPs) now had to factor into the cost of supplying NBN services.
NBN Co has provided internet providers with up to 40 percent extra bandwidth over their February consumption level for free.
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NBN has three major challenges ahead, says network expert Gregory
The national broadband network faces three major challenges as it looks ahead to the era after its official rollout was completed, network expert Dr Mark Gregory says, adding that these are reducing the digital divide, upgrading to full-fibre in fixed access areas and contributing to provide universal access.
He was asked for his views on the future of the NBN as part of a series that iTWire has been running since the middle of June, with renowned telco analyst Paul Budde, TransACT builder Robin Eckermann and Labor NBN adviser Rod Tucker all offering their takes on how they thought things should pan out.
Gregory, an associate professor in network engineering at RMIT and been a regular commentator on the NBN, told iTWire in response to queries that the government seemed to be at a total loss when it came to ideas about moving the NBN fixed access to FttP. "The result of this indecision will be Australia's slide down the rankings of global digital economy participant nations," he added.
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Tuesday, 14 July 2020 18:07
Fletcher says govt will upgrade NBN as needed but omits to mention how
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has said the government will continue to upgrade the national broadband network in line with emerging demand in the years ahead – but offered no concrete plan as to how this would be done.
In a blog post issued on Monday titled Australians well served by NBN as data demand grows, Fletcher traversed well-worn territory, outlining how the multi-technology mix of technology adopted by the Coalition Government in 2013 had "allowed us to roll out the NBN much more quickly than the original plan we inherited in 2013".
He claimed this decision had been strongly vindicated by the unexpected arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"If we had still been using the old plan, which rolled out the network over a considerably longer time period, millions of Australians would have been unable to access the NBN during this period," added Fletcher, a former Optus executive.
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Enjoy!
David.
