5AA - Newly announced broadband network to be run as a joint venture by Elders and Optus

COMPERE: Well, let's talk broadband, and we'll do that with the Communications Minister, Senator Helen Coonan. Good morning.

HELEN COONAN: Good morning, Mike, how are you?

COMPERE: I'm good, thank you. Now, where are we at with this? The Government made an announcement about broadband some weeks ago now. Broadband NSA, is it up to speed? Is - obviously the big change is on its way, isn't it?

HELEN COONAN: Yes, it is. The centrepiece of what we announced is a new competitive, state of the art broadband network that will extend high speed services out to 99 per cent of the population and will provide speeds of up to 12 megabits, which is very fast by 2009. So we expect that it will start about September and it will be finished by June 2009. And we're giving some priority to areas around South Australia and some areas around Perth that have really had problems with being able to get some proper broadband service, because they live too far from an exchange.

COMPERE: All right. So we're talking about country areas primarily here in SA?

HELEN COONAN: Yes. And also city areas, because we can also enable what is called ADSL2+ exchanges, so people who live close enough to e... an exchange will get them upgraded, and they're likely to get about 20 megabits of speed. And we expect that that will be available within weeks, not months. So there's some relief in sight, and we know that this is not some luxury.

It's absolutely critical to small businesses and to families, to anyone who needs to access fast broadband, that they can do so. But the critical thing also is that it will be at affordable prices, because it's all very well to have a wonderful new piece of technology but not if people can't afford it. So the entry price will be in around the $30, up to about $60 for very fast speeds, which is comparable to prices in built up metropolitan areas.

COMPERE: Minister, when I'm not filling in for Leon, I'm a journalist by trade, and I must ask a question rather cynically. Is that just in time for the federal election?

HELEN COONAN: It couldn't possibly be. I tell you why. The planning for this started about eight months ago, and there was an expressions of interest and a very vigorous competitive bid process, where the Government said, look what we need is a whole new network. Otherwise, we're just sort of filling in bits here and there with subsidies.

What we need is a whole new network that everyone can access at affordable prices. The Government put up in the end, nearly $1 billion. And the winners of this bid have put in about a billion of their own money, so that makes a network worth about 1.8, and that couldn't possibly have been done as a reaction. It's a very long process to roll out this kind of infrastructure.

COMPERE: All right. Now, have you got specific suburbs which will benefit first up?

HELEN COONAN: Well, we're just looking at signing the funding deed with the winners of the bid, that is a joint venture between Elders, it's a very well known brand...

COMPERE: Yep.

HELEN COONAN: ... and Optus. And as part of that, we'll be doing the schedule, so I can't actually talk about individual suburbs, but I've certainly heard the cries around Adelaide for people who just simply fall between two stools. They can't get a decent service from anywhere, and so we're looking critically at making sure that people who have missed out to date, get looked after, perhaps first up.

COMPERE: All right. Sounds good.

HELEN COONAN: Okay.

COMPERE: We'll wait for that. Thank you for your time this morning.

HELEN COONAN: Thank you very much for your interest.

COMPERE: Helen Coonan, the federal Communications Minister there, she has another appointment to rush off to, I understand.

So it's good news. If you weren't getting the high speed broadband or the, as high as it could be at least, it is on its way to you around our state. And she said it's only weeks away now.