NBN coming to Tasmania: first tender called

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 16 July 2009 12:00

IT Industry - Tenders

The first stage of the National Broadband Network (NBN) deployment is about to begin in earnest with the release of a tender for the supply of fibre optic cable.

A new company - TNBN Co - jointly owned by NBN Co and Aurora Energy will construct a fibre-to-the-premises network covering 200,000 homes and businesses in the state.

The network will provide 100Mbps broadband on a wholesale basis.

Right from the start, the Federal government has said the NBN rollout would begin in Tasmania.

"In partnership with the Tasmanian Government and Aurora Energy, we are working to deliver superfast broadband services to address the lack of parity in available services compared to mainland Australia," said Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.
 
"Tasmania has a long standing disadvantage in accessing high speed broadband and is the logical test bed for this nation-building National Broadband Network project," he added.

An open tender for the supply of fibre optic cable was released by Aurora Energy today.

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