Source: News.com.au
WORK has officially begun on the Federal Government's ambitious $43 billion national broadband network, starting in Tasmania.
Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett made the announcement yesterday.
Senator Conroy said Tasmania was the logical "test bed" for the fibre-optic cable network, as the state has traditionally had poor access to broadband services.
That means Tasmanians will be first to try out the 100 megabit-per-second network, while the construction will also serve as a learning process for the wider roll-out in mainland Australia.
The project will be run by a company called TNBN formed as a joint venture between the Federal Government's NBN company and Aurora Energy.

Good to see that the goverment is actually going through with this. Should be good once its all done.

Now I need my Fibre ticket lol

Damn, where will my monopoly go?

Seriously though, this is good for competition and I believe Tasmania is the perfect state for a road test of the new NBN. Small population, centered around cities, small area that sorta thing.

Does anyone remember that Tasmania was one of the first places to test Broadband over Powerlines? The entire group of CB radio nerds in the state (three?) had a tantrum about it.

Guess it will show a good timeline as well for the big job after. Plus costs might start looking at how many jobs go for fibre technicians in Tassie.

Tassie dropped Broadband over Powerlines didnt they a few years back, because they had there interests elsewere.

If the contracts are done right, and the prime contracting companies employee guys direct and dont try and shaft the subcontractors (like they do in the world of paytv) I guess that pay for the techs should be ok, and the job will be done correctly and ontime.