Melbourne welcomes NBN rollout

Access to the national broadband network will reach Melbourne University in the next 12 months as part of the next phase of the $37 billion network’s expansion. Lygon Street, North Ballarat and Melton in Victoria will also gain access to the network. Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the network is going ahead with construction commencing for 165,800 homes and businesses around Australia with 27,600 homes and businesses in Victoria. Professor Rod Tucker from the Melbourne School of Engineering at the University of Melbourne said the broadband network will be beneficial to both staff and students at the university. He said the network’s rollout will enable students and staff to better access and share teaching and learning resources, including “material, research data, library resources, and digital artefacts in the university’s cultural collections”. “The network will also enable better research collaboration with the sharing of large amounts of data including large files like medical images,” Tucker said. Access to the network will assist the university to position itself as a world leader in broadband-enabled education, he said, adding that the system will give students equitable access to resources. Conroy said network construction activity is happening in every state and territory in Australia, including in South Penrith, Carlton, Prospect, Nudgee, Gungahlin, Darwin, and Meadow Springs. “Over 24,000 Australians are already using the NBN, across all three of its technologies. The NBN is here and it is happening now,” he said. “The only threat to the NBN’s fast, affordable and reliable broadband is the Coalition, whose leader Tony Abbott says that the NBN is ‘an investment we don’t need’.” Conroy said.