Conroy tips another $100m into NBN Tassie

James Riley
Monday, 01 March 2010 17:11

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Just weeks away from the Tasmanian state election, the Rudd Government has tipped another $100 million the NBN Tasmania Company to extend its broadband roll-out into a further 90,000 homes, including the major population centres of Hobart, Launceston, Devonport and Burnie.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the detailed work was now underway for Stage 3 of the Tasmania roll-out, including 40,000 homes in Hobart, 30,000 in Launceston, and 10,000 each in Burnie and Devonport.

"In total, the first three stages of the NBN will target 100,000 premises in Tasmania, including homes, businesses, schools and hospitals, which will receive high speed broadband," Senator Conroy said.

The roll-out of the national broadband network in Tasmania is being carried out in partnership by the Federal Government through the NBN Tasmania Company and the State Government through its utility firm Aurora Energy.

Senator Conroy said the roll-out sites for Stage Three of the project had been selected by NBN Tasmania in conjunction with Aurora Energy.

Tasmania goes to the polls for a state election on March 20.

While the first two stages of the Tasmania NBN roll-out focused on the extending the fibre backbone network between population centres in regional areas of the state, the third stage was an urban-based roll-out that would deliver strong commercial outcomes and leverage the economies of scale of a large project.