Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 16 May 2007 18:12
Business IT -
Networking
Page 2 of 3
Price told the Atug conference that the Alberta Government had a vision to make global connectivity available to all citizens. This encompassed four goals: eliminate the digital divide between rural and urban Albertans; allow Alberta-based enterprises to lead in development of new IP services; drive Alberta's future growth and prosperity; raise performance of key government services: health, education, security while improving government efficiency.
The network now spans an area of 661,000 square kilometres and connects 429 communities, 2,073 learning facilities, 309 libraries 400 health facilities and 1,300 government facilities
Price told iTWire that the committed revenue stream from government communications had made the project viable without relying on any incumbent infrastructure, and he suggested that the same model would work for Australian Federal Government in conjunction with the states.
"The government here could say 'we will have a joint funding programme with the states and do this model with each state. They cannot do it with Federal Government communications requirements because that is not big enough: the big spend is in health, education."
He claimed that the reaction from the incumbent in Alberta had been similar to Telstra's: "The incumbent through the whole competitive bid process said: 'over my dead body: I am not going to make my fibre available to anybody'...Through the bid process the incumbent squealed and whined and threatened law suits and did all the things that your incumbent is doing here." Having just sat through a speech by Telstra's Phil Burgess, he added "though not quite as big and bold as here."
The French model is rather different. The National Government empowered each Department to put its next generation network build out to tender and provided grant funding to contribute to the cost on the proviso that the network must be open access.
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