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Seven months after the first NBN trucks rolled into Tamworth, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce unleashed the $50 billion promised high-speed network on 5320 houses across parts of Oxley Vale, North and East Tamworth, as well as Moore Creek on Friday.
The remaining 13,000 premises and businesses in the city will be following suit in the upcoming months, with all areas of the Tamworth region expected to be fully NBN capable by July 2018.
“It’s good to be coming back and delivering services to the people that sent me to Canberra,” Mr Joyce said.
“We said we would deliver it, we are delivering it, and we are ahead of schedule.”
The Nationals Leader went on to thank the NBN Co, the administrators and “the taxpayers, who paid for it,” before stating that the technology will not only boost the Tamworth economy, but also go along way towards helping with his decentralisation policy.
“Having the NBN will further increase that movement of people from the cities to places like Tamworth, we have a booming city – it allows businesses to come to town and avail themselves to that service, and answer that question that so many individuals and businesses ask, what access do you have to broadband?”
The New England region now boasts 48,000 NBN-ready premises, although only 18,000 of those have taken up the offer amid national coverage, and even a frank assessment from NBN CEO Bill Morrow, that the roll-out hasn’t been without its challenges, particularly in delivering the Federally legislated minimum speed of 25/5mbps.
“A close to $50 billion investment - it is rather complicated – it would be naive to say it would happen without a glitch, but it is about how you manage those problems,” Mr Joyce said.
Tamworth marks the halfway point of the national roll-out, with over 5.7 million premises now NBN-ready.