August 12, 2021
South Burnett Regional Council will seek a $3 million grant to help make the South Burnett the most advanced digital community in regional Queensland.
At Wednesday’s Communities standing committee meeting, Councillors voted unanimously to submit an application to the first round of the State Government’s $100 million Resources Community Infrastructure Fund (RCIF) for the project.
If successful, the money would be used to extend the State Government’s QCN fibre-optic network from the Tarong Power Stations to Kingaroy and Nanango.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Councillors were told the QCN network would soon be connected to Australia’s new submarine cable at Caloundra.
The cable will provide the fastest internet gateway to the Asia-Pacific and allow QCN’s network to offer speeds of up to 10Gb/sec, well above the standard speeds most South Burnett residents currently enjoy.
Funding would allow this “dark fibre” to be integrated into the Kingaroy Transformation Project.
The fibre could also be installed in planned future footpath upgrades in Nanango’s CBD; and delivered to other towns and businesses across the region via microwave transmitters.
Cr Kirstie Schumacher said apart from greatly enhanced internet speeds which would make the South Burnett the equal of capital cities and larger regional centres, the project would also make the area highly attractive to many businesses that require super-fast internet to operate.
This includes emerging industries focussing on artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, cloud services, and the “internet of things” (smart devices).
The QCN network would also enable improvements to health services – particularly eHealth services – as well as education facilities in local schools; and improved community safety and disaster management capabilities.
The fibre network would help eliminate the congestion experienced with existing digital services.
It would also put downward pressure on data costs by allowing local Internet Service Providers to access capital city wholesale data pricing through QCN.
Councillors were told preliminary work to scope the dark fibre project has been undertaken with the Department of State Development and QCN, and empty conduits to hold optic fibre cables are already being laid in Kingaroy’s CBD.
The bulk of the money would be used to build a 42km fibre-optic cable to connect Tarong to Kingaroy via Nanango, and introduce faster internet speeds to the region at no cost to ratepayers.
- Related article: Dark Fibre Plan For CBD
