Transcript: Press Conference - Hobart nbn rollout now 50% complete

Paul Fletcher MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications: Good morning I'm very pleased to be here at ISW in Hobart, a successful IT business, with Ian Warner, the managing director of the business.

And ISW is connected to the nbn, has been connected for a period of time, and this is a good indication of the economic benefit of the NBN.

I'm here particularly to announce that the NBN is now available to 50 per cent of premises in Hobart. So there are 12 SAMs, serving area modules, across broadly the Hobart local government area - construction in six of those is now complete so 50 per cent of premises in Hobart can now connect to the NBN. Construction in the broader Hobart region is also very well advanced and construction will have commenced across the entire broader Hobart by the end of 2016.

We're also seeing significant progress in the rollout of the fixed wireless across Tasmania, now some 90 fixed wireless base stations are operational. So with that I might ask Ian to talk a little bit about his business and what the NBN means for his business.

ISW Managing Director Ian Warner: Thank you Paul. NBN is essential for our business. In years gone by we've had to strategically locate ourselves in the same premises as a telco... because bandwidth is essential.

When we knew that the NBN was coming that actually enabled us to relocate into, this is a great place to work, in Salamanca, the fact that you can be located in a nice area of your choosing. So the efficiency gains have improved... We sell software all over the world, and we've been able to build our business from Tassie.

Now our export revenues, last year we had a record - we grew our export revenue 30% over a million dollars, that's small beer in terms of big companies but for a small company that's quite an achievement. NBN, I'm a big supporter of it, I've been on the board of TasICT for the last decade and we as an association are very supportive of the NBN. We can see benefits to transforming the Tasmanian economy and a more innovative culture. And we're seeing that - over the years Tassie has changed a lot, many small successful IT companies starting up and knowing you can be successful, you can sell around the world in different places and NBN is a critical component of that.

Paul Fletcher: And Ian before you were saying, I think, that this particular location was available to you, or was a practical place to locate your business, because of the NBN becoming available within a short time after you moved in?

Ian Warner: That is a very big factor, without knowing that the NBN was coming, as I said previously, we had to locate next to - we had to pay the money to get bandwidth. And you can get the bandwidth if you pay the money but now it becomes so much more economical and that has been an enabler, especially for smaller businesses. Obviously for bigger businesses it's important, but it's essential.

Journalist: So it's made the operation of your business cheaper and it's grown, what is the potential for it to grow further with the NBN? Have you reached your limits or can it grow further?

Ian Warner: I'm not sure, in terms of reached its limits, when you look at fibre as a technology a lot of people don't really understand, and I get this a lot when you're talking to people, they're using wireless but you only have to go to the MCG and try and Google something and you realise how saturated wireless can get, whereas with fibre it's like having the entire spectrum down one piece of fibre, and that's essential... [inaudible].

Paul Fletcher: And just to pick up on that point, I think the significance of today's announcement - 50 per cent of premises in the Hobart City area can now get connectivity to the NBN - is that's an enormous benefit to homes, but it's also an enormous benefit to businesses. Here at ISW, a successful Tasmanian IT business, serving customers on the mainland and serving customers all around the world, that connectivity has been so important. And there will be plenty of other IT businesses and businesses of all kinds that will have new opportunities as a result of the NBN.

The important thing is that the rollout of the NBN is now accelerating here in Tasmania and nationally. So Bill Morrow, the CEO of NBN was in Tasmania just last week and he indicated that were on track towards 100,000 premises - there were only 34,000 premises at the election. Nationally it was a little bit over 300,000 premises that were able to connect to the NBN as at the election in September 2013, we're now closing in on 1.3 million.

So the rollout is really significantly accelerating and Tasmania is right at the forefront of that, indeed NBN has said that the rollout is on target to be completed, the plan is to have the rollout completed in Tasmania by the middle of 2018, and Tasmania will be the first state where the NBN rollout is completed. So we are seeing the rollout moving ahead, here in Tasmania and nationally and as the rollout builds momentum more and more businesses like ISW are able to connect to the NBN and get the benefits of the connectivity and the speed so that as a nation we can enjoy the economic and the social benefits of NBN and high speed broadband.

Journalist: It seems that everyone who's got the NBN connected are very happy with it, but there does seem to be so much unhappiness with the process of signing on to getting it. Particularly in Tassie, we hear about... being cut off, we hear these stories again and again. Is that just a by-product of having such a massive national project or can those issues be improved?

Paul Fletcher: What you are seeing with the NBN under the chairmanship of Ziggy Switkowski and CEO Bill Morrow, you are seeing the NBN scaling up the rollout very, very quickly. Under the previous government there was a lot promised, very little delivered. We're now seeing the NBN delivering - today's announcement that 50% of the premises in Hobart can now connect is just one on many milestones that have been achieved around the country.

NBN recently issued its corporate plan which showed the path forward to 75% of premises nationally being able to connect by mid-2018, and Tasmania is part of that. So yes, there have been difficulties along the way but the rollout is building momentum, more and more premises here in Tasmania are able to connect today, more and more premises around Australia can connect and that momentum will build over the coming years under the leadership of a competent and experienced board and management team supported by the Abbott government and Malcolm Turnbull as communications minister so that we can deliver the rollout, because it's very important that we get the rollout delivered so that as a nation we can enjoy the economic and social benefits.

Journalist: [inaudible]... The rollout in Tasmania, is that on target?

Paul Fletcher: The rollout in Tasmania is progressing well, the plan - as NBN CEO Bill Morrow has reiterated just in the last week - is for Tasmania to be the first state that NBN is completed, where the rollout is completed, we are on target to achieve that by 30 June 2018 and today's announcement about 50 per cent of premises in Hobart now able to connect to the NBN is an important milestone and is consistent with the plan.

Question: [inaudible]

Paul Fletcher: The rollout across Tasmania is making good progress. There are now over 90 fixed wireless base stations now operational. 28,000 premises around Tasmania can now connect to fixed wireless. Users in Tasmania and around Australia on fixed wireless have given us excellent feedback, that network offers 25Mbps peak speed down, 5Mbps peak speed up, so that's faster than most people in cities today are getting on DSL. We've also announced that we'll be introducing a 50Mbps peak speed service on fixed wireless so for those that want even higher speeds, that will be coming and the prices that people are paying retail service providers for plans over the fixed wireless network are meeting with very good responses around Australia, people are finding they're getting high speeds and considerably greater download limits than typically come with mobile broadband and at markedly cheaper prices than mobile broadband which is often the service people are using in regional and remote Australia.

So in Tasmania, around 14% of premises ultimately will be connected to fixed wireless. The fixed wireless rollout is going well, in addition, in remote areas of Tasmania and indeed around the country will be served by the long term satellite service - also 25Mbps peak speed down, 5Mbps peak speed up - the first satellite is due to launch in October and services are scheduled to commence mid-2016. So people wherever they are located in Tasmania, there is very good progress on the NBN rollout with the expectation that the rollout in Tasmania will be completed by mid-2018 making it the first state to have the NBN rollout completed.

[ends]