Goondiwindi locals and businesses are being promised some of the cheapest and fastest internet in Australia under a new deal between the Queensland Government and a local internet provider.
Innovation Minister, Kate Jones said the government had established QCN Fibre to unlock thousands of kilometres of optical fibre cables to deliver better internet in regional Queensland.
The Minister said a deal with Queensland-based Channel Wireless and Goondiwindi internet service provider Country Broadband Network (CBN) would solve internet issues in the region.
“The NBN has been a disappointment for thousands of businesses in regional towns like Goondiwindi,” Ms Jones said.
“Because we’ve kept our assets, we’re able to use thousands of kilometres of spare optical fibre to provide better internet for locals.
“As a result, businesses and residents in Goondiwindi will soon benefit from some of the fastest, cheapest internet in the country.”
Ms Jones said supporting small businesses was crucial to the government’s Unite and Recover plan.
“We are the only side of politics that has a clear strategy to create jobs, rebuild our economy and lead Queensland out of the coronavirus pandemic,” Ms Jones said.
“We understand that right across the state small businesses are struggling. We also know that reliable, fast internet is crucial to running a company in regional Queensland.
“This deal is an absolute gamechanger when it comes to supporting Goondiwindi businesses to grow and creating jobs for locals in the long term.”
QCN Fibre is a telecommunications company jointly owned by Powerlink Queensland and Energy Queensland, formed to help regional business development by using Queensland Government spare cabling and selling ‘backhaul’ capacity to providers on a wholesale basis.
The backhaul cabling – high-capacity lines that transmit between sites or to a central point – is being made available to carry internet and data services at capacities up to 100 gigabytes per second, for businesses and residences.
QCN Fibre CEO, Derek Merdith said QCN Fibre would partner with local internet service providers, as well as the major carriers, in regional Queensland to improve coverage, capacity and cost.
“In areas currently underserviced by existing telecommunications players, the partnership will build the ‘last mile’ connections to serve the residential and business markets,” Mr Merdith said.
In Goondiwindi QCN Fibre has partnered with Channel Wireless and local internet service provider CBN to speed up the town’s internet and data services.
Channel Wireless is providing the ‘last-mile connection’ and CEO, Dan Thompson said the company’s wireless technology could deliver reliable services more than 10 times that of a typical NBN service, up to 500 megabytes.
“Until now, we had been constrained by the available capacity and high cost, to get our data back to Brisbane and to the internet – which meant having to reduce speeds available to customers,” Mr Thompson said.
“Working with QCN Fibre means we can open up the pipes.”
