North Shore City broadband gets a $4.6 million boost
September 8, 2006

North Shore City Council is delighted that its bid under the Government's Broadband Challenge has been successful.

Economic development manager, Roger Matthews, says the $4.6 million grant will improve the availability of broadband access for North Shore City's educational and community organisations while the extended network will create new opportunities to connect with business.

"Affordable and accessible broadband is vital for our city's economic prosperity," he says.

"The community will benefit from the greater efficiencies that broadband will bring, transaction costs will be reduced, and even more technology and knowledge-based industries will be attracted to the area."

Mr Matthews welcomed the opportunity to continue to work alongside Vector which assisted in developing the council's application for the pilot scheme.

Under the scheme, a fibre-optic network will be built that links all schools, libraries and some other community institutions with significantly greater levels of security and reliability.

North Shore City Council is excited by the prospect of having a fibre optic network in its city that delivers accelerated access and speed to community facilities such as schools, libraries and hospitals.

Roger Matthews says the need for world-class broadband infrastructure was identified in North Shore City's economic development strategy, adopted last November.

"We hope that by providing state-of-the-art communications to our children, we will stimulate wider community demand for broadband services generally," he says.

ENDS

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