James Riley
Tuesday, 15 September 2009 10:28
IT Industry -
Market
Page 1 of 2
Anticipating deep shortages of technical and trade skills as it plans to roll-out its National Broadband Network, NBN Company executive chairman Mike Quigley says the venture will design and deliver its own specialist training courses with partners around the country.
And though NBN Co does not plan to create its own research and
development organisation, Quigley says it will patent "whatever is
patent-able" for possible resale to similar fibre roll-outs overseas.
As part of that process, he said NBN Co would build a test and
integration laboratory to address any incompatibility issues between
vendors, the results of may lead to NBN Co patents.
As the economy gathers moment, skills and other human resources issues
were a major priority for the company during the build phase.
"We are going to need to leverage all of the skills that we can
possibly get around the country," Quigley told a media conference call
earlier today. "And certainly (we will) design and deliver training
courses out into the industry in cooperation with our contracted
partners."
"(This is) a very serious issue that we are going to need to address.
Human resources and the human resources plan is a very big part of what
we need to do in terms of the overall project planning," Quigley said.
While skills are a core issue for the company, it is unlikely it will
look offshore to meet demand – although it may seek to recruit at least
some management expertise with hands on experience in fibre to the home
roll-out overseas.
"If we found somebody … who had been heavily involved in a fibre to the
premises roll-out that was willing to come and join us, that would
probably be a smart thing for us to do," he said.
The skills issue may ultimately decide where the NBN headquarters is
located. In fact, regardless of where Mike Quigley locates himself and
the headquarters, the company will be spread across multiple location
in the major capital cities.
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