$80 million boost to go to rural NBN

A new initiative that is aimed at promoting the take-up of broadband in regional and rural areas of Australia is to receive funding of $80.3 million from the Federal Government.

Over a period of four years the Government will be making a contribution of $5 million to encourage the use of broadband amongst businesses, local government and communities in Australia’s rural areas with the appointing of “rural national broadband network coordinators”, known as the Rural and Regional National Broadband Network Initiative, which is part of the 2009 budget.

Stephen Conroy, the Communications Minister said “A key role for these coordinators will be to encourage take-up of the opportunities provided by the Regional Backbone Blackspots Program, improving the competitive market in regional Australia. Rural NBN Coordinators would be assigned to regional backbone projects. They will live and work in the local community, have a sound knowledge of broadband, and be able to quickly establish strong working relationships with local governments and businesses.”

An investment of $250 million into a backbone fibre optic transmission link in order to improve regional Australia and broadband competition is to be fast-tracked following the establishment of The Regional Blackspots Program.

To provide a deployment of over 50 regional broadband hubs the ABC will get $15.3 million as part of the NBN scheme. The creation of ‘virtual town squares’ where user generated content can be shared between communities and  the establishment of portals and community web sites will be the main purpose of these ABC hubs.

Senator Conroy said “The expanded interactive sites will build awareness of local issues and stimulate and facilitate community-generated content. They will be supported by education, training and equipment to enable local communities to generate and publish their own content.”

The total level of funding will be taken to $60 million with final part of the initiative, which will see an additional $14 million being injected into the Government’s Digital Regions Initiative.