The federal government has allocated an additional AU$20 million to cover a shortfall in funding for the Broadband Connect rural broadband subsidy.
A spokesperson for the office of Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan today confirmed the extra funding, which is designed to cover existing subscriber claims for subsidies.
The move has come after the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA) recently wrote to some regional ISPs advising them current, per-subscriber Broadband Connect funding was close to running out.
The government has already announced a new program -- dubbed the Broadband Guarantee -- to replace the per-subscriber aspects of Broadband Connect, however the funding shortfall had caused alarm among the ISP community due to the lack of funds available while the department was transitioning to the new program.
For example, this morning Internode said it had halted its regional broadband rollout in South Australia due to the problem.
Hello,
Koala Telecom is an Adelaide based ISP providing DSL, DSL2 & Wireless.
Our wireless covers Adelaide Metro & Regional SA and cost us $6million of our OWN money.
We have never claimed a single cent from Broadband Connect, and despite claims in the industry that wireless can not exist without Broadband Connect is ridiculous.
We are currently running a promotion where a customer can connect and receive a FREE LCD TV, the promotion has cost us $3.5million dollars.
If you don’t wish to take the LCD we will continue with FREE wireless installations.
We are happy to do an article showing that not everyone needs broadband connect, and demonstrate how the industry can continue without it, and the only winner here is the customer, as ISP are no longer artificially funded they must now grow and maintain customers based on true competition.
Thank you,
Curtis Raams
Koala Telecom Pty Ltd