The Australian government has made it official that Telstra's former CEO Ziggy Switkowski will be NBN Co.'s new executive chairman.
Switkowski's appointment should not be that surprising as a number of reports emerged over the past month that he was a top candidate. In addition to his ten-year tenure at Telstra, he served as the CEO of Optus Communications, Australia's second largest telco.
Switkowski's appointment is part of a broader realignment that Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull is conducting of NBN's board.
Siobhan McKenna, the chairwoman of NBN Co. resigned along with several other board members last month. However, Kerry Schott and Alison Lansley were asked to continue serving on the board.
Besides the executive chairman post, the government has asked NBN to conduct a strategic review on the progress and costs of the project. Set to be completed by Dec. 2, the review will be used to establish the true costs, in time and dollars, of the national broadband network.
One of the government's proposals is to replace the current fber to the home (FTTH) network strategy with what they say is a lower-cost fiber to the node hybrid fiber/copper architecture.
For more:
- Bloomberg has this article
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