IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Former Shadow ICT Minister, Senator Kate Lundy, will demonstrate the ability of the NBN to deliver what she calls “improved social and educational outcomes for Australian” when she connects from Canberra, by broadband, with the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) in Sydney, and a family in Darwin who use the RIDBC’s teleschool’s services.

Sydney based global telecommunications consultants BuddeComm have been in New Zealand this week assessing the country's teleco landscape.

State governments, major telcos and regional interests groups are among the 30 industry submissions detailing how the National Broadband Network (NBN) should be delivered to regional Australia.

The ABG was introduced to provide people in rural and remote areas not covered under the proposed national broadband network with access to metro-comparable services.

Ovum analysts Kevin Noonan and David Kennedy said the Australian community was ready to have a “grown-up discussion” about broadband speeds and coverage.

They said no political party could afford to be caught unprepared on key technology issues.

"In the post-election carve-up, both sides of politics have assigned experienced ministers to lead the charge on communications policy, and both have nominated broadband as one of the key battlegrounds for winning or retaining government," the analysts said.

"We believe it's time to look at the consumer and business involvement," technology, media and telecommunications leader Damien Tampling says. "How it's going to be used by consumers will make it a successful project.

The policies, the only ones announced by either Labor or the Coalition at their respective campaign launches, make a strong link between two issues the government is eager to campaign on: health and the national broadband network.

''It is disturbing to me, it is unacceptable to me, it is offensive to me that if you live in rural or regional Australia you are three times more likely to die within five years if you are diagnosed with cancer than other Australians,'' Prime Minister Julia Gillard said at Labor's campaign launch yesterday.

"We must move to drag Australia into the world of modern communications," said Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) president, Councillor Geoff Lake, in reference to a damning review of the broadband situation in the Association’s latest State of the Regions (SoR) report.

Services that depend on high-quality broadband infrastructure include tele-health, e-education, e-business, digital media, e-government, smart meters etc. In countries where the national telco is lagging behind we see that local governments have no choice other than to take a leadership role, as they have done with similar infrastructure over the last 100 years.

The three rural independents say broadband is one of the big issues for their electorates, as they head into the second week of negotiations with Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard.

Labor plans a fibre network of 100 megabits a second to 93 per cent of households, while the Coalition says it will use a mix of technologies to provide a minimum 12 megabits per second, and up to 100 megabits, to 97 per cent of homes.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy released the long-awaited NBN business plan in Canberra today.

A basic feed from the National Broadband Network (NBN) will cost telecommunications wholesalers $24 a month, the Federal Ggovernment has revealed.

The basic plan will offer download speeds of 12 megabits per second and upload speeds of one megabit per second.

Terry Cutler, chair of the ATC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, said attention should shift from infrastructure to public benefits now that a deal had been struck with Telstra on the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN).

On June 20, after protracted talks between the government and Telstra, an $11 billion deal was struck for Australia's biggest telco to lease its infrastructure to NBN Co, the company that will build and run the network.

Released in London ahead of today's vote in Canberra on legislation to support the NBN, the study finds evidence to support the claims made for fibre-to-the-home ''surprising weak'' and cites Australia as a key example.

''All else equal, faster is better,'' says the study, prepared by British telecommunications consultant Robert Kenny with Charles Kenny from the US Centre for Global Development.

As part of the trial, telehealth monitoring units and videoconferencing systems will be installed in homes and primary healthcare clinics of veterans with chronic diseases and those aged over 65 in the sites of Armidale and Kiama Downs. Under the rollout of the NBN, each of the sites are expected to encompass up to 6000 premises connected to speeds of up to one gigabit per second (Gbps).

Funding will come from the federal government's $4 million pot, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said.

The Digital Regions grant will allow NSW to pilot remote healthcare delivery directly into the homes of people aged over 65 with chronic medical conditions, via high-quality video-conferencing links.

The Labor government's proposed $43 billion national broadband network (NBN) isn't necessary for the rollout of the health record identifiers, according to the head of the National eHealth Transition Authority (NEHTA).

The comments were made at the health informatics conference on Tuesday, when ABC's Tony Jones moderated an e-health discussion with five industry representatives.

The NBN Co business plan, released today, estimates households could pay between $53 and $58 a month for a basic internet services with speeds of 12 megabits per second.

Building the network will take nine and a half years, with a rollout peak of 5900 premises a day during construction, but some 1.7 million homes, businesses and schools are expected to be connected by June 2013.

An e-health project aimed at improving chronic disease patient care marks the beginning of a raft of e-health projects enabled by the National Broadband network, according to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy.

Labor has pledged to connect 11 million homes in eight years to high-speed broadband under the NBN program, at a cost of $43 billion (or about $2500 each).

The NBN will be based on optical fibre - glass or plastic strand carrying light from lasers. Current connections run on copper networks.

The Minister for Rural Development, Phillip Costa, says more than $11 million will be provided over the next five years to service communities not covered by the national broadband network.