NBN Co Blog

Champion US sprinter Michael Johnson this morning ran a coaching session with Australia's latest running star over the superfast National Broadband Network.

Johnson, in Melbourne, joined Andrew Robinson, the first Tasmanian in 70 years to win the Stawell Gift, to run the world's first NBN-enabled athletics training session with children at South Hobart Oval.

Johnson ran through his tips for becoming a successful athlete and talked about how he developed his own career before he got the NBN-enabled coaching session underway from the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

In a demonstration of how services over the NBN can be used for coaching and teaching, the four-time Olympic goal medallist started off with some stretches for the children from Mount Carmel College. He then moved on to demonstrating the best starting position and showed why his running style worked so well.

Robinson said he was excited by how superfast broadband can help change the face of sport in Australia.

Celebrated soprano and Opera Australia star Taryn Fiebig took to the stage at the Sydney Opera House this morning to give singing lessons to students in Coffs Harbour via the National Broadband Network.

In the first NBN-enabled singing lesson using live video streaming, Fiebig put students from the Coffs Regional Conservatorium of Music and Sawtell Public School through their paces with a series of singing scales and breathing exercises.

Connecting apartment blocks to the National Broadband Network should be easier now that NBN Co and Strata Community Australia have joined forces to help NBN Co contractors more easily access the buildings.

Before NBN Co and its contractors can start installing fibre into a building they need to liaise with the owners or their representatives to get access to the building.

But this isn't always as straightforward as it sounds.

"Simply making contact with owners corporations can be challenging because there is no publicly available register or listing of office bearers, committee members or authorised representatives such as strata managers," says Strata Community Australia chief executive Mark Lever.

"Also, these positions do turn over regularly and NBN Co needs to be talking to the right people at the right time."

NBN Co and SCA will be collaborating in a six-month pilot to assist in obtaining contact details for owners corporations and bodies corporate of multi-dwelling units to gain the necessary information and approvals to cable the buildings and install NBN equipment.

SCA estimates that one in five of the premises which NBN Co connects to fibre will be in a multi-unit strata setting. NBN Co and its contractors need to liaise with building owners and authorised representatives of the strata schemes to assist with building access so that tailored cabling solutions can be designed and installed through common areas to each unit or apartment. 

Mr Lever says the vast majority of multi-unit buildings engage strata managers to deal with these types of issues and most of those are members of SCA's state and territory affiliates and chapters.

Under the pilot, SCA members in rollout areas will log onto the SCA's national member database system to register contact details for each building scheduled for installation. Non-members and self-managed buildings will also be directed to the portal to provide secure and confidential contact information.

"The last thing anyone wants is for households to miss out on the benefits of the NBN simply because no-one could be contacted to assist with building access. NBN Co does not currently charge for a standard installation into a multi-unit residential community, or for the ongoing maintenance of the NBN equipment and cables, so there is no reason not to get on board."

Mr Lever added that a key message for all strata communities would be that free installation will only be available for a limited time.  Once the rollout has been completed in the area, for NBN Co to have to go back and connect a property at another time will incur a cost.

"We want all strata schemes to take advantage of this service and get connected."

The first group of strata buildings for which information is sought will be posted later this week. Members servicing those areas will be alerted by email and non-members should check the website page www.stratacommunity.org.au regularly for updates.

NBN Co is set to more than double wholesale broadband speeds for people who live in rural and remote Australia.

More than half a million homes, farms and businesses which are eligible to receive the NBN's Fixed-Wireless and Long-Term Satellite services will be able to take advantage of retail internet services that are based on the wholesale download speeds of up to 25 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 5 Mbps.

In terms of the upload speed, the wholesale speed boost is up to five times faster than the current speed.

Last week, I had the privilege of having NBN service installed.

Living out in the sticks and surviving on expensive and unreliable 3G broadband was starting to drive me crazy.

As soon as the NBN rollout map showed my area had service available I signed up. 

Read on to find out what NBN fixed wireless is like...