Broadband is essential to a wide range of commercial and public activities.

Leveraging Tasmania’s digital infrastructure allows regional economic strategies to emerge. These establish education, collaboration and partnerships as fundamental elements of the next economy. Comprehensive digital access is also an important framework for sustainable growth, and will provide added potential for improving socio economic harmony.

The Federal Government wants to build a competitive broadband network across Australia – high-speed, fibre-based broadband network, providing speeds of at least 12 megabits per second to 98 per cent of Australian homes and businesses. Construction of the National Broadband Network has begun in Tasmania.  According to the current policy, most homes in areas receiving this upgrade will not be connected directly by ultra-high bandwidth optical fibre; this type of direct connection, providing broadband speeds of 100mbps, is called fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) or fibre-to-the-home (FTTH), and is currently operating  in Tasmania.

The recent Broadband Futures Forum held in Sydney is an excellent example of activity and participation regarding the future direction of broadband in Australia

In rural areas, various telcos are growing the size of their wireless 3G service in direct competition with each other, and in anticipation of the new optical fibre network. This effort is an attempt to gain a long-term market share without using the established exchanges, cable channels and line infrastructure owned by the larger organisations. There are many – often competing – technology solutions that connect homes to high speed broadband. This will lead to much more choice in price and services across this sector in the years ahead, particularly in remoter areas where communities may end up building their own solutions as an alternative to current services.

In addition, wireless broadband is being seen as possible alternative for regional and remote areas. Technologies like WiMax,  4G and LTE (Long Term Evolution) are expected to be offering very high speed broadband capabilities and speeds similar to fixed broadband solutions like fibre. As consumers become comfortable with their 3 G devices, such as iPhones and expectations are being raised due to the “always on” nature of mobile communications. The following links from Wharton Business School provide a good overview of the potential surrounding 4G wireless technologies.

Wireless Technology: The Birds and the Bees … and 4G

Read and/or download the podcast from  Scott Snyder, CEO who is president and COO of consulting firm Decision Strategies International, predicts 4G will revolutionise the way we work and play by creating “one giant wireless ecosystem” that buzzes with innovation.