NBN Co has announced that all five first release sites will be activated for trials by April. NBN Co is the company responsible for rolling out the Government’s National Broadband Network.
Armidale is the most advanced of the five mainland sites and Quigley reportedly told the audience at the Broadband and Beyond 2011 conference in Sydney it would be the first to get end-user customers.
“This is the place where we will probably make the connections to mainland customers, it is just simply the timing has worked out that way for a variety of reasons and… by the end of April we expect to have customers connected,” Computerworld reported.
The first five mainland sites with NBN Co rollouts are Armidale in NSW, Kiama in NSW, Willunga in SA, Townsville in QLD and Brunswick in Victoria.
An NBN Co spokesperson told ARN all five sites would have activated trial customers by the end of April via retail services providers (ISP). They also said Armidale had not been finalised as the first test customer.
“We’re 80 to 90 per cent complete with passive fibre construction averaged across the five sites,” the spokesperson said. “We’re looking at getting one or two test customers by the end of April.
“We’ll be adding more [end users] in the first weeks and months… we haven’t finalised who those retail service providers will be yet.”
Kiama and Armidale have also been slated for a $4 million e-health trial aimed at older Australians with chronic conditions. They’ll receive home telehealth vital stats monitoring and video consultations.
