The Regions Rising conference was addressed by Gavin Williams, a senior executive with the NBN. His theme was ‘build it and they will come’.
He made the point that the building is not over. NBN is investing over $2.5 billion to upgrade communications in the regions.
The fixed wireless network is now offering speeds of over 40 megs a second and this will be upgraded to 60 mps. The NBN is introducing digital business zones that offer ultra-high speeds in the regions for the same price as the cities. This a great enabler for digital based businesses.
The NBN is now pushing its ‘feet on the street’ campaign which aims to localise NBN services with more employees located in the bush. One of the senior managers is a dairy farmer from Dorrigo.
Mr Williams says that the introduction of ultra-high speed broadband is underpinning the regionalisation of Australia as digital dependent businesses find they can operate from the bush.
Mr Williams was followed by a spokesman from Transgrid who made the point that most renewable power generation was located in the regions. This required an upgrade of the grid, at a cost of approximately $11 billion - 70 per cent of which will be spent in regional Australia. It will create over 7,000 jobs in the regions.
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