The content on this page and other DCITA document archive pages is provided to assist research and may contain references to activities or policies that have no current application. See the full archive disclaimer.
Gloucester
The Gloucester Online project centres on the Gloucester Shire, a small community north of the Hunter Valley in NSW and just south of the mid north coast region. The Gloucester local government area is about 3000 square kilometres and 5000 people.
The project funded a broker to publicise the benefits of broadband to the wider Gloucester community and use aggregated demand to persuade one or more service providers to invest in the region.
The demand aggregation strategy had several key elements.
- Educating the community on the benefits of broadband through public consultation, newspaper advertising
- Registering the local demand via collection of customer expression of interest forms
- Investigating suitable wireless solutions outside the region of ADSL
In putting together a business case to be circulated among potential suppliers, it became apparent that a novel solution would ultimately be needed. Pockets of demand were proving to be thinly spread across very large areas.
Clusters of 20 to 30 people could be identified, and those could be linked to create a critical mass. The village of Barrington was considered to be an important cluster for a wireless solution but was soon also targeted by Telstra for ADSL.
Service providers were asked for expressions of interest in April 2005 and MyWiSP was selected. The wireless mesh technology offered by this company was capable of connecting the small clusters identified during the aggregation process.
MyWiSP has since commenced customer sign-ups and has been able to provide a range of offerings starting at $30 per month with no installation cost. These met with a very positive response from people both inside and outside the ADSL coverage area.
Achievements
- Four exchanges have been ADSL-enabled since the project began.
- One wireless provider (MyWISP) is operating across five towns using mesh technology.
- Six new towns now have broadband.
- About 600 people can access broadband for the first time.
- Entry level pricing for broadband is $29.95 per month and is expected to remain at that level for the immediate future.
- Data rates on offer are 256 and 512 for Wireless and ADSL, and 1.5 mbps for ADSL.