We cannot afford to miss the opportunity to capitalise on the natural creativity and inventiveness of Australians because of broadband infrastructure that lags our competitors. But without strong and decisive action, we will fall further behind other nations that are now investing billions of dollars into the communications networks of tomorrow.

Small businesses will miss out on a swathe of productivity-raising applications. Our children will miss out on spectacular educational opportunities. Australian entrepreneurs will miss the chance to take part in the earliest stages of industries that will in time be worth billions of dollars.

For Australia to turn around its declining productivity, we must have a national fibre to the node network. This network will replace much of the existing telecommunications network with optical fibre, dramatically increasing broadband speeds to 98 out of every 100 Australian households.

While other nations are well advanced in building fibre to the node networks, the proposals of Telstra and the nine-member consortium of other telecommunications providers still have not gone beyond the planning stage.

This situation has gone on for too long.

Federal Labor will revolutionise Australia’s internet infrastructure by creating a new National Broadband Network.

It will connect 98 per cent of Australians to high speed broadband internet services – at speeds over 40 times faster than most current speeds.

With the rollout of a new ‘Fibre To The Node’ (FTTN) network, Federal Labor will increase speed to a minimum of 12 megabits per second – so fast that household entertainment, business communication and family services will happen in real time.

The remaining two per cent of Australians in regional and rural Australia not covered by the FTTN network will have improved broadband services.

New services and benefits of the network – particularly in rural and regional areas – include:

• Slashed telephone bills for small business;

• Enhanced business services such as teleconferencing, video conferencing and virtual private networks;

• Enhanced capacity for services like e-education and e-health; and

• High definition, multi-channel and inter-active TV services.

 

Read Labor's National Broadband Network