As a fast growing municipality, the City of Whittlesea has been vitally concerned that its residents and businesses can reap all the benefits of the information age. Council boasts an impressive record in using information technology and in recent years has won many awards for its work.
Currently, a number of projects are focusing on local business and residents having access to broadband and how they can make best use of this technology.
The project took out a commendation in the 2004 National Awards for Local Government in Information Technology. These are regarded as the peak national awards for Local Government.
The City of Whittlesea initiated the WIRED Development Project which encourages broadband infrastructure investment in new estates.
Mayor, Councillor Sam Alessi said this assists the establishment of a broadband network. “We want it to be capable of providing a range of telecommunications, data and video services, for the benefit of local communities,” he said. “This includes businesses, government and educational institutions, private residents and other community groups.
“Using Council’s planning powers, we have mandated the installation of telecommunications conduit in new subdivisions by developers. About 2,000 lots now have the conduit installed. We have developed standard guidelines for network architecture and installation to ensure a common approach is taken by developers.
“We have also formed a Growth Council consortium with Casey, Wyndham, Melton and Cardinia Councils, with assistance from the Municipal Association Victoria (MAV). This creates economies of scale which makes leasing the conduit attractive to a telecommunications carrier.”
In return for a low cost lease, the carrier will be required to install a high bandwidth broadband network capable of delivering telephone, Internet, video and other data services. The next stage is getting developers to tender for a carrier to build high bandwidth optical fibre to each household and delivering a rich mix of broadband delivered services to the home.
VicUrban’s Aurora Estate in Epping North is the first developer to go out to tender. It is expected to have a fibre optic to the home solution in place by the end of 2005 delivering telephony, ultra high speed Internet, Pay TV and video on demand. This model can be used by other Local Governments across Australia. In another project, a thorough assessment was made of the areas which had access to broadband. Some areas were discovered to lack broadband coverage so Council has been actively pursuing this issue with the telecommunications carriers.
A number of residential areas have since been upgraded including the recently built 600 lot Botanica Park estate in Bundoora which until January 2005 only had dialup Internet access.
About one third of the industrial areas identified through the survey without access have now been upgraded and work is continuing on remaining areas.
