Geraldton connects to the NBN

The fixed wireless network for the National Broadband Network (NBN) has been switched on in Geraldton.

The area is serviced by two fixed wireless sites, with around 354 premises able to connect to the NBN in the area at speeds of up to 12Mbps.

Once the fixed wireless rollout in Geraldton is completed, around 1300 premises will be able to access the NBN.

Geraldton will also receive the NBN via fibre, which will cover nearly 13,000 premises.

“The NBN fibre rollout for Geraldton is also underway, with construction commenced for 12,700 homes and businesses. It is expected that the first fibre services will be available in Geraldton in the first half of next year,” Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, said in a statement.

Geraldton will also be connected to a 449km fibre link between Perth and Geraldton as part of the $250 million Regional Backbone Blackspots Program, which is delivering 6000km of fibre backbone to regional Australia.

The fibre link will be used to help support the Square Kilometre Array telescope.

“We’ll literally use that cable to transport our data from the telescope through to the supercomputing centre, which is being built in Perth and that’s where we actually process the data. That’s the brain of the telescope,” said Lisa Harvey-Smith, SKA scientist at CSIRO.

Conroy said the fibre link has been trialled at speeds of 100Mbps and can support the delivery of 8TB per second.

Geraldton was one of the first release sites for the NBN’s fixed wireless service and has received government funding to get on board the NBN.

A total of $617,000 has been invested by the government for Geraldton’s Digital Hub and Enterprise programs to provide information and training to residents about the NBN.

The federal government has also provided $366,000 to the area to improve local government services using the NBN.

A total of 93 per cent of homes and businesses will be connected to the NBN via fibre-to-the-home, primarily in towns with more than 1000 premises.

Around 4 per cent of households will be connected via fixed wireless networks and another 3 per cent will be connected via satellite services.

Areas to be serviced by fixed wireless include areas in south west Queesnland; Cowra and Young in central west New South Wales; and 15,000 premises in [[artnid: 424714.

Follow Stephanie McDonald on Twitter: @stephmcdonald0

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU

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