DAMIEN BROWN
April 30, 2009 08:26am
TASMANIA is expected to take delivery of $700 million today to start the Federal Government's broadband network.
The allocation will enable the state take a lead in rolling out the massive $42 billion project and have Tasmanian households surfing the net 100 times faster than anyone else in the country.
The massive handout is expected to be announced at today's Council of Australian Governments meeting being held in Hobart.
It is the first time Australian government leaders will have met in Hobart since 1994.
Tasmania's peak information technology body, TasICT, described the pending announcement as a "revolution for the state".
President Peter Gartlan said the entire IT sector was walking around like they were on "happy pills" but he urged the Government to act quickly and get users online with the concept of superfast internet.
"The difference that this new network will produce for business in Tasmania as well as the potential for growth and jobs is enormous, but I don't think the general public has yet grasped an understanding of what exactly 100 megabits actually means," Mr Gartlan said.
"Once you have increased the speed of your internet by 100, the opportunities are endless.
"People in the past may have thought that this kind of technology is a bit too complicated and hard to access but 100 megabits is a bit like talking to someone across a coffee table.
"If we are going to get people online sooner rather than later the Government needs to be setting up demonstration centres so Tasmanians can see for themselves the differences this will make."
Mr Gartlan said Tasmania would become the test-bed for the rest of the country and the performance of the service would speak for itself.
"For the first time in a long time Tasmania is going to be the leader in this and we can't wait," he said.
Unveiling the plan earlier this year, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described the scheme as the single largest infrastructure project in the country's history and said it would create 25,000 jobs a year during construction, with 37,000 in the busiest year, over eight years.