TAG | Budget allocates $207m to subsidise rural broadband |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Tuesday, 13 May 2008 | |
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{mosloadposition stuart However the funding represents a much lower cost option than the $1 billion that was to have been provided to the Opel consortium, and according to Shadow communications minister Bruce Billson is insufficient. "Despite having absolutely no alternative to Opel, the Government has allocated an inadequate $270.7 million over the next four years to support the continuation of the successful Australian Broadband Guarantee Program," he claimed. Communications minister, Stephen Conroy, said that the Government was conducting a consultation process on policy and funding initiatives to provide enhanced broadband to rural and remote areas, including those that may fall outside the scope of its planned National Broadband Network on which it is planing to spend up to $4.7 billion. According to Conroy "[the consultation] process will explore long term options in order to ensure that rural and remote areas have access to the best available broadband services." He added: "In response to industry and consumer feedback, changes will be made to the Australian Broadband Guarantee to encourage greater terrestrial broadband access and to target Australians living in remote and difficult-to-service 'blackspot' areas." This focus on terrestrial broadband could explain why satellite operator NewSat's application for funding for satellite broadband was rejected. In late 2007 NewSat was confidently predicting that it would get the funding and start offering services in October 2007. It also bodes ill for NewSat's attempt to secure government funding for a new satellite . Conroy said that the funding would "encourage the broadband industry to develop more long-term and innovative Internet solutions for rural and regional Australians." These will include greater incentives for industry to take a whole-of-region approach to network deployment. According to Conroy, "The certainty of funding will also ensure Internet service providers are not hindered from making longer-term plans for building infrastructure." The programme is designed primarily as a safety net for those in rural and remote locations that do not have access to a threshold level of broadband service, defined in terms of both price and performance, but it will also fund improved broadband services to the two percent of Australia that are unlikely to receive broadband coverage from the National Broadband Network and to Australians living in metropolitan 'blackspot' areas. Consumers, small businesses of 20 or less full-time employees and Indigenous Community Councils are eligible to receive broadband services subsidised by the programme.
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