051/06
8 June 2006

Broadband Connect—Call for Expressions of Interest

The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan, today called for Expressions of Interest from industry for larger scale infrastructure projects under the Australian Government's $878 million Broadband Connect program.

“There is a unique opportunity to use a substantial proportion of these funds to leverage private investment in Australia 's regional broadband networks and improve access to broadband services across the country,” Senator Coonan said.

“We want this significant investment by the Australian Government to be leveraged by major private sector investment and include the support and involvement of State and Local Governments.

“This is about building on our investment in rural, regional and remote Australia to rollout sustainable and scalable networks to connect the country.

“Industry collaboration, consortiums and partnerships that can support such large scale projects would certainly be encouraged but are not mandatory.”

The EOI process will allow interested parties to put forward other ideas, plans and possible project proposals to help inform the final design of any funding approach. The alternative funding approach would see the allocation of funds to a small number of large scale infrastructure projects through a competitive grants process.

“It is highly desirable for projects funded under Broadband Connect to link, where appropriate, to the other elements of the Australian Government's $1.1 billion Connect Australia package—which also includes Mobile Connect, Clever Networks and Backing Indigenous Ability,” Senator Coonan said.

The EOI puts forward likely assessment criteria that would apply under an alternative funding approach, with commercial viability and future scalability to higher speed services to be major considerations.

C onsistent with the Government's pro-competitive approach to telecommunications, the EOI also disc usses the need for fair and reasonable wholesale access arrangements to enable competition at the retail level.

All interested parties, including carriers and service providers are welcome to respond to the EOI. The request for EOI is available at www.dcita.gov.au/tel/broadband_connect.

The closing date for responses to the EOI is 5.00pm AEST Friday 14 July 2006.