Telecommunications Tassie-style

Our visit to Tasmania came at a time of great change and excitement concerning their broadband and telecommunications infrastructure.  The government is well underway on an aggressive $40 billion plan to provide broadband telecommunications to 100% of all Australia (12 Mb down/1 Mb up minimum for you techies).  The National Broadband Network (NBN) as it is called has aims to reach the entire country through fiber, fixed wireless, and satellite technologies by 2015!

I've had the wonderful opportunity to see NBN through many lenses while here.  I've spent very informative and full days with NBN themselves, with Telstra, the country's largest current provider of telecommunications who as you would expect has an interesting relationship with NBN, with Aurora Energy, whose telecommunications division drove some of the initial NBN launches.

Although there are a variety of opinions about spending $40B+ of taxpayer funds on such a project, there is no doubt that when completed, this will certainly set Australia apart from other large nations its size in terms of broadband capabilities.