13 June 2014

Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor has welcomed news that the Federal Government will build an NBN (National Broadband Network) tower at Murringo.

Announcing the news on Young Radio 2LF this morning, Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull said: “Construction is commencing on a new fixed wireless broadband base station at Murringo and that will cover 129 premises. So we already have three towers that are in the process of being completed and will become active between now and the end of the year … and they’re at Monteagle, Young East and Young West. So all told, among those four towers, there’s nearly 1,000 premises covered with fixed wireless around Young. They will get 25 megabits per second broadband - so very fast broadband - more than normal.”

Angus Taylor said he was delighted the Minister was listening closely to Hume residents. “The community of Murringo has spoken up persistently and I have been taking that message to the Minister. I have been pushing hard for our fair share of funding under the NBN rollout. This announcement is a strong message of support for our regional communities,” Mr Taylor said. “We will put the case that an NBN tower at Murringo can also be used to co-locate infrastructure for mobile telephone reception. This is an outstanding result.”

Mr Taylor encouraged residents to visit the NBN Co website http://www.nbnco.com.au/ which had been updated today to show NBN tower sites currently under construction across Hume and the dates when residents would be able to access the broadband network. He said the rollout maps were updated monthly.

“This Government is getting on with delivering broadband to regional and rural communities which had been left behind under Labor. There are four new towers under construction around Young, Monteagle and Bribarree and eight new towers going up at Noonbinna, Mt McDonald, Gooloogong, Cowra, Koorawatha and Canowindra. We are getting great progress across Hume.

Mr Taylor said a Strategic Review conducted by NBN Co revealed that Labor had drastically underestimated demand in rural Australia, meaning that 200,000 premises would not have been able to order a service once the networks had been built.

“The Coalition will invest up to $1.2 billion more in rural Australia to ensure the satellite and fixed wireless networks are able to cope with demand. The rollout is happening faster than ever and trials have started to test other technologies which will dramatically lower the cost and time it will take to deliver fast broadband to all Australians.”