IN 1942, AUSTRALIA and New Zealand put forward a national communications scheme which would remove control of communications operations from Cable & Wireless. At the 1945 Canberra Conference, proposals were made for Commonwealth countries to operate communications independently, with central Commonwealth control.
In the same year at the Imperial Communications Conference, the Canberra proposals were unsuccessfully opposed by Cable & Wireless, and in 1947 the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (Australia) was formed to take over from Cable & Wireless. From the 1960’s to the 1980’s, Cable & Wireless’ involvement with Australia focused on major international coaxial cable projects such as COMPAC, SEACOM and ANZCAN. In the 1990’s, the formation of Optus established a second telecommunications network and by 1994 its network comprised of over 5,000 kms of fibre optic cable.
