National Broadband Network: 21st century broadband

The Australian Government announced on 7 April 2009 it would establish a new company to invest up to $43 billion over eight years delivering superfast broadband to Australian homes and workplaces.

To turn its vision into action the Government has:

• established NBN Co Limited to build and operate the network, providing 90 per cent ‘fibre to the premises’ coverage delivering speeds of 100 megabits per second with remaining coverage through state of the art wireless and satellite technologies, offering speeds of up to 12 megabits per second or more, to people living in more remote parts of rural Australia
• already invested $60 million of an initial $4.7 billion investment in the company
• progressed a detailed implementation study (due to report to Government in February 2010) by a consortium of McKinsey and KPMG to inform the company's operating arrangements, detailed network design and ways to attract private sector investment
• established NBN Tasmania Limited as a subsidiary of NBN Co to build and operate the NBN in Tasmania—construction of the rollout has commenced and the first 10 Tasmanian communities to receive superfast broadband were announced
• engaged Nextgen Networks to rollout almost 6000 km of new fibre optic backbone links, as part of the Government’s $250m investment in the Regional Backbone Blackspots Program to connect over 100 regional locations along the routes to the six priority areas of Geraldton, Darwin, Emerald and Longreach, Broken Hill, Victor Harbor and South West Gippsland
• introduced legislation to improve competition in the telecommunications sector, including during the transition to the full NBN rollout, which was passed by the House of Representatives and is before the Senate for consideration
• received an extremely strong response to the regulatory consultation process and progressed legislative changes that will govern NBN Co.

The Government terminated the previous Request for Proposals (RFP) process on 7 April 2009, on the basis of advice from the independent Panel of Experts that none of the national proposals offered value for money. The Panel noted the rapid deterioration of the global economy had a significant impact on the process. Refer to the extract from the evaluation report for more information.