Phase 1 of the Government's Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) will be completed at the end of May and Enterprise Franklin Development Trust is working to make this a bonus for rural Franklin (see RBI and what it means for our communities). "There are three groups involved to getting broadband to the home, farm or business" says John Allen of EFDT. "First are the Local Fibre Companies (LFCs) who provide the fibre cable to a node which is generally a school, health clinic, local government office or telephone exchange. These are the infrastructure providers and will be the recipients of the government funding under the RBI. Examples of LFCs in our area are Chorus (a Telecom subsidiary) and Counties Power. From the node, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) make the 'last mile' connection to rural households, farms and businesses. How that last mile connection is made depends on how close the household is to the node and the technology used by the ISP. This technology will range from the ultimate of fibre cable, ADSL2+ over existing copper wires (less than 2km from the node) and wireless systems."

For those households beyond the 2km point or without a line of sight view to a wireless transmitter, other options are available such as mobile broadband (Telecom XT, Vodafone) and satellite.

Yes, the options are involved so one of the roles of EFDT's Rural Connect service is to educate users about their options and help people choose the best technology solution for their situation.

Bearing in mind that the RBI is a 6-year program and that the wider Franklin area has no guarantees that a Local Fibre Company will choose to invest in the area, another important role for EFDT is to help LFC build a strong business case to be first up with RBI funding. “Our first step in this process,” says john Allen, “was to commission a Broadband Demand Study that looks at who has broadband and how users want to use it.” The results of that are summarised elsewhere (see “We're an Internet-connected community”) and now we are turning our attention to working with partners at the infrastructure and ISP levels to improve broadband connections in rural Franklin.

From an economic development perspective, high speed broadband is as essential to rural areas as was electricity and a postal service last century. "We see high speed broadband as a key strategic tool to the development of rural businesses, the retention of a highly skilled work force living in our rural communities and the reduction of distances that workers have to travel to work." says Rural Connect's John Allen.