News - Thursday, June 16, 2011 12:03 - 28 Comments

You’ll get the NBN: Conroy promises Tassie schools

The Office of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to bringing the National Broadband Network to Tasmanian schools, in the wake of news yesterday that schools in early stage rollout zones in Tasmania had not had the NBN fibre switched on a year after it was connected.

In parliament this week, Tasmanian Opposition Education Spokesperson Michael Ferguson asked Education Minister Nick McKim whether any school in any of the three towns of Scottsdale, Midway Point or Smithton had been connected to the NBN. “No school in any of the three Stage 1 towns are using a production NBN service,” McKim replied. The cause appears to the fact that the state’s education department has an overarching contract for telecommunications services – which predates the NBN.

However, The Federal Government, in addition the Tasmanian State Government, have repetitively touted the ability to bring high-speed broadband to schools as a benefit of the NBN, holding demonstrations of the fibre-optic technology in schools in both Tasmania and other early stage release sites such as Armidale over the past year.

For example, in mid-May, groups of school children in Armidale and Tasmania were filmed in a joint rendition of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ sung over a videoconference link over what appeared to be a NBN link between the two states. School students using next-generation broadband services have also been regularly featured in NBN Co advertisements highlighting the benefits of the NBN to the national education system.

In a statement issued yesterday, the Office of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the Government stood by “its stated commitment that all schools will have access to services delivered over the NBN”. “The Gillard Government’s National Broadband Network will give Australian schools access to world-class high speed broadband infrastructure,” the statement said.

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