South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula has been blanketed in WiMAX connectivity, making it the nation’s first community to achieve region-wide wireless connectivity.
The community previously relied on dial-up services or limited wired broadband.
A community celebration marked the official launch of the service, hosted by Stephen Conroy, the Federal Minister for Broadband and Communications, and Paul Caica, South Australia’s Minister for Science and the Information Economy.
“The Yorke Peninsula broadband network is a great example of collaboration by all tiers of government, the community and the private sector,” Conroy said.
The celebration was followed by a program of community activities intended to encourage members of the community to explore the range of activities now open to them thanks to the wireless broadband.
Caica said the project could be considered an example of things to come, describing it as a “pioneering effort”.
The project succeeded thanks to the contribution of all the parties involved, Caica said, including federal and state governments and the local community.
“All partners collaborated around a single objective, and that was to ensure that the community had access to an effective broadband service, designed to meet the needs of the local community, now and into the future,” he said.
ISP Internode offers free connection to the WiMAX service to eligible users, thanks to subsidies in the May Federal Budget.
