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Community based brokers
Print this pageThe Demand Aggregation Brokers program provided funding over three years to regional, rural and remote organisations to recruit, employ and support the activities of a community broker.
Funding was granted to 24 projects via a competitive process under two separate rounds. All the projects were due to be completed by 30 June 2006.
The main role of the community brokers was to promote awareness of the benefits of broadband services to communities, encourage broadband take-up, and aggregate demand within local areas, all with the aim of achieving more affordable pricing arrangements.
The demand aggregation strategies adopted varied significantly between individual community broker projects. This reflected the specific requirements of the communities.
Most strategies, though, promoted community engagement. That means awareness and support for broadband were built up, and the business case developed.
The process typically involved the brokers setting up displays at ICT open days and other community events, holding public meetings on broadband opportunities, developing a register of the local demand, and meeting with key local government, business and community organisations.
The brokers also helped communities to map the number and location of potential broadband customers and then use the information to engage with the service providers and identify opportunities for broadband deployment.
The process commonly culminated in an expression of interest process. It resulted in commitments from potential service providers to deliver broadband in the brokers' respective regions.
Typical outcomes from a community demand aggregation broker project were:
- aggregating sufficient demand to enable the local exchanges for ADSL;
- ensuring users in isolated locations are aware they can access satellite broadband from a choice of HiBIS supported providers;
- attracting one or more wireless operators to deploy infrastructure that reaches customers who are too far from an exchange to access ADSL; and
- increasing the level of competition in regional markets to improve affordability and choice of broadband services.
Round 1 community broker projects
On 5 July 2004, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts announced 13 projects to be funded as part of the first round of the community based Broadband Demand Aggregation Brokers program. Examples of completed projects: Barossa Light (SA), Gold Coast (QLD), Connect South West (WA), Gloucester (NSW).
Round 2 community broker projects
On 19 May 2005 the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts announced 11 projects under the second funding round of the community based Demand Aggregation Brokers program.
Examples of completed projects:
- Document ID: 40973 |
- Last modified: 6 February 2008, 12:31pm