Terria takes its message to Tamworth

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 20 November 2008 16:06

Business IT - Networking

Terria - the Optus led consortium bidding to build the National Broadband Network - held a community consultation in Tamworth to spell out its plans for the network and re-iterate its promise to prioritise installation in regional Australia.

Chairman Michael Egan said the consortium would  roll out new infrastructure first in under serviced regional and rural areas as well as metropolitan ‘black spots’.

This approach would extend the life of the DSLAMs many of its members have installed in metropolitan exchanges to deliver ADSL services. These are likely to be left stranded once fibre is run from these exchanges to nodes in the street.

Egan said it was critical that country Australians were not treated like second class citizens. “Regional and rural areas contribute 65 percent of Australia’s export income, but they are the ones we seem to ignore when it comes to the availability of critical telecommunications infrastructure."

“Australia’s primary producers typically live in the areas most under serviced by existing broadband infrastructure. As key contributors to the national economy, it is simply not good enough that many have to fund the installation of their own transceivers so they can access broadband services.”
 
He promised that Terria would lodge a "crackerjack bid" for the new National Broadband Network next week, and said "addressing the issues of access equity and pricing parity in regional areas is a central part of that bid...the new National Broadband Network provides an opportunity to bring regional and rural Australia up to scratch with most metropolitan areas.”