Bellingen Chamber of Commerce

Industry and Business feedback needed ASAP – see details below. Feedback by email preferred

National Broadband Network

The Government has announced it will establish a new company that will invest up to $43 billion over eight years to build and operate a National Broadband Network (NBN) delivering superfast broadband to Australian homes and workplaces.

The NBN will mean people living away from major cities will have:

· less need to travel to obtain specialist services, saving people time and money;

· convenient access to city services;

· opportunities for communities to connect with one another using real time, high-definition video conferencing; and

· better access to information sources and tools that are typically located in major urban centres.

Some parts of the National Broadband Network initiative will take time to deliver – rolling out a new network across the country is a major and complex engineering task.

Tasmania was selected as the first region for the NBN rollout

Opportunity for North Coast NSW

An opportunity exists to position North Coast NSW as the next regional area for the NBN rollout. There are a number of factors which make this submission possible and provide support for its success:

· The combined population number of the Mid North Coast and Northern Rivers regions is comparable to Tasmania but covering only half the area.

· Southern Cross University’s expertise in Information Technology and commitment to supporting the regions take up and application of business and community broadband technologies.

· Regional support from Local Government and other agencies.

The NBN Submission

In his recent visit to Grafton, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy invited the region to provide a submission that provides a compelling business case for our region to be the first on the mainland for the rollout of the National Broadband Network.

The key assistance we need from you is to provide some content for the report.

We are looking for information to answer these kinds of questions:

· What is the scale and importance of this industry in the region now?

· Why your industry/organisation needs the superfast broadband that fibre optic network can deliver?

· What kind of increased growth can be predicted…especially with access to high speed broadband?

· What existing initiatives show support for the use of high speed broadband?

· Examples of slow internet being a bottleneck to growth?

· What is the importance of internet to business function?

· What are some visions of next generation capabilities?

· Short case studies of

· What are some examples of organisations in the region being leading edge companies – early adopters?

· In what ways will broadband help strengthen the community?

You don’t have to answer each and every question – these are just indicators of the content we are looking for. Any and every bit of info you can provide to assist us with this submission would be great.

Note final submission will be 10-12 pages in total. Your input will be used to develop the submission. I envisage that as well as this ‘glossy’ submission there will be supporting documentation which will include letters from Councils, summary reports, case studies or letters from individual organisations which we can use as required.

Timeline:

· Your input to the submission provided (the sooner the better!) ultimate deadline – 7th December 2009

· Information collated, analysed by 14th December 2009

· Submission to be presented to Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) by 21st December 2009.

Regards,

Kristina Cooke

Strategic Development

Economic Development Unit

Coffs Harbour City Council

Level 1, Rigby House

Coff Street

T: 02 6648 4089

M: 0428 265 383

E: kristina.cooke@chcc.nsw.gov.au