The Town of Gawler is one of the first Regional Centres in South Australia connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN).
Gawler’s businesses, residents, public sector and schools will have access to 21st century telecommunications infrastructure.
The Australian Government’s Digital Local Government program has provided support to facilitate the upgrade of Council’s internal digital infrastructure to enable the community to have improved access to Council services.
Over the past 15 months Council has been working to upgrade its communications network by installing a new CISCO video conferencing system, creating new online portals and producing promotional videos of the township. This recent infrastructure work ensures Gawler is prepared for the NBN when the fibre is lit up and connected to the global online community.
Installing the new technology in Gawler’s heritage listed Council Chamber has proven to be a wonderful juxtaposition of the old and new.
The CISCO video conferencing system was installed by Telstra iVision and has four end-points at three locations with the ability to place point to point video calls, multi-point video conference calls, live stream presentations, record meetings and be used for local presentations.
The system has been utilised many times for community groups, events, launches, council activities and external meetings.
The Gawler community will soon have the ability to interact with council through real time online community consultation, to attend and participate in meetings remotely and talk ‘face to face’ with council staff online.
Importantly, improving accessibility to council services via the NBN will be a major benefit to the disadvantaged in the local community, with a focus on the youth and seniors.
This project will revolutionise the way our community interacts with Council and will broaden community participation and consultation on Council related projects and programs.
Benefits of this project include; reduced travel times for attendance at external meetings; reduced costs associated with a multi-site council service; video conferences with out-of-town/state and international participants, negating the travel and cost issues; improved Council unified communication network and importantly enhancement of digital collaboration with other South Australian local councils.
The Digital Local Government program is expected to be officially launched during April 2015.
