A broadband revolution

The first thing Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner did this morning when I asked him about the massive $43 billion broadband network announcement was chuckle.

He knew the reception the announcement would get from an online business such as SmartCompany and our readers that have struggled with the slow, unreliable, expensive broadband, ADSL, black spots and black outs.

“This will be good for your business,” he told me. What an understatement.

This announcement is good for all smart companies. It is a highly ambitious plan that will fundamentally change people’s businesses – where they do business, where they locate their business, and the way they will do business.

And it is particularly good for small business, home business and businesses operating in regional areas that have struggling with dial up and ADSL.

The announcement this morning has left everyone gobsmacked. Analysts that have been highly critical of the tender process could barely put their reaction into words this morning.

Telecommunications expert, Paul Budde, told me: “This is absolutely mind boggling. A total bomb shell. We hadn’t expected this.”

Budde has travelled the world looking at different networks. Not only is fibre-to-the-home (or premises), the best solution, he concludes, but Australia will go from laggard to leader.

“This will immediately make it the largest fibre-to-the-home plan on the planet,” he says. “If we are creating this network and are the first in the world to do so, then this creates huge opportunities.”

As all entrepreneurs know, being first to market has massive advantages. Australia can develop applications, products and services linked to the network, that we can then export to the world as they develop their networks. We can develop new products and services as industries like healthcare, education, tourism, media change. 

We can use fast broadband to market our products to the world faster and more cheaply. And we can use fast cheap broadband to communicate and link with each other through video, teleconferencing, wikis and new ways we can’t even dream of.

And it won’t matter where your business is located, in the dining room or Pitt Street. Or whether your business is small, home-based or solo. The world will soon be just a click away.