The Federal Government today said it had made a capital injection of $100 million into the Tasmanian arm of the National Broadband Network Company in order to facilitate the rollout of optic fibre to the cities of Hobart, Launceston, Burnie and Devonport.

The urban implementation will constitute stage three of the NBN rollout in the state, with the first two stages to focus on longhaul backbone links and connecting up rural communities.

Communications Minister Senator Conroy said in a statement issued this morning that the first stage of the rollout – to the townships of Smithton, Scottsdale and Midway Point – was “well underway”, with those communities “on track to start receiving services from July this year”.

“NBN Tasmania will soon invite residents of these communities to attend community forums, to provide information on the NBN and how it will benefit them,” Conroy added.

“In total, the first three stages of the NBN will target 100,000 premises in Tasmania, including homes, businesses, schools and hospitals, which will receive high speed broadband. Detailed design work is now underway for Stage 3 with 40,000 premises in Hobart, 30,000 in Launceston and 10,000 in each of Burnie and Devonport to have access to superfast broadband via optic fibre.”

The sites were chosen by NBN Tasmania in coalition with partner Aurora Energy, which is helping to rollout the network. Conroy’s statement said that details of further stages would be released as deisgn and construction work progressed for the initial rollout.

Related posts:

1. NBN Tasmania drops “ready to roll” pamphlets
2. NBN: Tasmania left in the dark, says lobby
3. NBN scammers target Tasmania
4. Apple of the isle: The NBN expands in Tasmania
5. Telstra offers free NBN trial in Tasmania

1. Bec
   Posted 06/08/2010 at 9:59 am | Permalink | Reply

   How do i find out if i can tap into optic fibre?

   • Pete
     Posted 06/08/2010 at 10:09 am | Permalink | Reply

     It’s a bit of a mess at the moment due to the Federal campaign and weather (makes it more annoying to deal with trenches, etc.). I suggest you contact Digital Tasmania. Far as I know the copies of the maps they have are still current. There’s been some ‘rejigging’ of Stage 2, hence no knew maps for a while. AFAIK.

     http://www.digitaltasmania.org

2. Bec
   Posted 06/08/2010 at 10:12 am | Permalink | Reply

   Thank you. I’ll give them a buzz.

   • Pete
     Posted 06/08/2010 at 10:17 am | Permalink | Reply

     Yer welcome. From memory, originally Stage 2 would hook in main cities, as detailed in this article. That was then thrown out and the emphasis now is on smaller towns without ADSL2+ style capabilities. So if you;re major metro, you’ll be SOL for a while still. I was down the other end of the table during this discussion last month and missed most of it (a monthly luncheon of Hobart’s geeks).
     But yeah, DigiTas is the go. Andrew’s done a fair bit of radio work on ABC. Knows the topic pretty well.

3. Pete
   Posted 01/03/2010 at 1:43 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Aurora own fibre 10 meters from my front door. Been there near two years now. Beats me why I can’t tap in to it right now. Bet after this all comes to pass I still won’t be able to…

4. Renai LeMay
   Posted 03/03/2010 at 12:21 am | Permalink | Reply

   Is that from the old TasCOLT rollout?

5. Pete
   Posted 03/03/2010 at 8:46 am | Permalink | Reply

   Some underground power cable went in at the same time. From my discussion with the contractors, my understanding was it was part of an upgrade of the local substation that hadn’t been touched for 30 years which included new cable that would be capable of being used as part of FTTH, although this was not specifically part of TasCOLT. It’s primary use was to be part of communication with the substation.
   Which I guess is a long was of saying after TasCOLT failure, I believe Aurora kept putting in fibre where possible.

6. Renai LeMay
   Posted 03/03/2010 at 11:04 am | Permalink | Reply

   Yeah the power companies have fibre everywhere that seems relatively unused. There have been various efforts to leverage it for broadband, but nothing has really taken off so far :(