Our children must get up to NBN speed

TASMANIAN children must become more digitally literate to unlock the full potential of the National Broadband Network, the state’s peak industry body says.

More than 90 per cent of the state has NBN access, with about 32,000 homes and businesses to be connected in the final stage of delivery.

TasICT chief executive William Kestin told a federal parliamentary inquiry into the NBN rollout that older Tasmanians and children needed more eduction to fully unlock its benefits.

“It doesn’t matter how connected we are, if people don’t know how to use it,” he said.

Older people should be taught how to use the internet to stay in touch with family and access medical information and children should learn coding, he said. Mr Kestin said the state ranked the worst in the country for digital literacy in Australia’s Digital Pulse report by Deloitte Access Economics.

“There was virtually no investment in the State Budget and that will continue to have repercussions across the state,” he said.

Mr Kestin said the NBN’s new fibre to the curb technology would be a good option for the state’s West Coast.

This was a better option than fibre to the node and would give the West Coast the advantage it needed, he said.

It could be the technology used to fulfil a Coalition election promise for $24 million of expenditure to take the NBN to Zeehan, Rosebery and Queenstown.

A fibre to the curb rollout results in fibre going down streets past houses, with a copper line from the street to home. The existing fibre to the node rollout provides nodes with consumer speeds varying depending on the distance from the node to the home.

“Fibre to the curb provides better speeds than fibre to the node and is less costly for upgrades in the future,” Mr Kestin said

“At a time when there is no decision on the technology for the West Coast rollout and when the rollout is not slated to begin until the start of next year, then why not provide the better opportunity for the businesses and households on the West?

“A better technology is critical to the digital transformation of that region.”

He said fixed wireless was affected by weather and satellite was never able to get rid of latency problems.

The inquiry continues with public hearings in Launceston today.