Areas deprived of broadband should be a priority says latest report

Latest reports from the senate select committee have advised that the first areas that the NBN rollout should focus on are the ones where there is currently little or no broadband access for households.

A recently released interim report has said that the initial priority for the rollout of the new National Broadband Network from the government are those households that are currently at a disadvantaged due to a lack of access to broadband services in their area.

The delivery of the first part of its report with regards to the proposed network has been issued by the Senate select committee on the National Broadband Network. However, further debate into the proposed network of the Rudd government is all that has been achieved with the release of this latest report.
It has been advised in the new report that “areas that are currently underserved or un-served should have broadband deployed first”. The report further recommended that once deployed the infrastructure from the areas that are classed as underserved should then be “rolled-in” towards metropolitan areas. Both state and local government involvement in this process was also recommended by the report.

To enable existing service providers and their customers to more easily migrate over to the new network, an appropriate transition system was called for.

The possibility that broadband users would not be effectively having to pay more with the new system was something that Stephen Conroy, the Communications Minister would not be able to guarantee, according to Mary Jo Fisher, a Liberal Senator, who chaired the committee.

During question time she advised parliament “And that’s an indictment of the process thus far.”

A dissenting report was issued by government senators, who said that when it came to this issue it was characteristic of an opposition trying to “walk both sides of the street.”

The report states “Opposition senators claim to support the need for broadband infrastructure investment in Australia, while on the other hand they have done everything possible to obstruct and undermine the governments NBN process.”
The senate were told be Kate Lundy, a Labor Senator “You can’t have it both ways, the opposition senators can’t sit both sides of the fence.”