Gillard and Conroy preside over NBN launch in Armidale

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 18 May 2011 09:00

Your IT - Home IT

Prime minister Julia Gillard and communications minister senator Stephen Conroy will this morning preside over a ceremonial switching on of the National Broadband Network in Armidale NSW, following trials over the past month with a handful of Armidale households.

NBN Co said residents were progressively being connected to the FTTH network by the four service providers that had already completed the certification process: iiNet, Internode, Primus and Telstra.

NBN Co said it expected AAPT, AARNet, Comscentre, Exetel, Nextgen Networks, Optus, Platform Networks, SkyMesh and Vodafone, to start offering services as part of the trials as they complete the certification process.

Armidale was one of five mainland first release sites announced in March this year. The NBN's FTTH rollout in Armidale covers approximately 4,882 premises, almost 2000 of these within the University of New England.

The launch will feature demonstrations of education, health and business applications that will be enabled by the NBN as well as testimonials from some of the first Armidale customers connected to the network.