Leveraging the NBN

Recently 4impact were joined in Brisbane by the Hon. David Bartlett, former premier of Tasmania. David was a guest of 4impact and came to town to give a presentation to the Logan and Redlands Regional Development Authority on the impact that the NBN can potentially have in regional areas. David was instrumental, as Tasmanian Premier, in Tasmania being awarded the first pilot sites for the NBN rollout. David was originally a Computer Science and IT graduate from the University of Tasmania, starting out working in services and support with Telstra, so he knows the benefits ubiquitous broadband can bring to business in regional areas.

About 50 people attended the breakfast and got some real insights into things that they should be considering to take full advantage - "it needs to be business driven, not technology driven". He is passionate about regional Australia and the NBN and urged attendants to get on board sooner rather than later to realise full benefit. As David said, "this is not about faster downloads at home for movies, this is about changing the way we do business". From a personal perspective this resonates. In Queensland, I feel we sometimes focus too much on it being a great place to visit and a great place to live. In fact, it is a great place to do business. Addition of NBN infrastructure into the regional areas of Queensland will only make it a better place than it already is.

Later in the day David attended a private lunch with some of our 4impact clients to talk about specific NBN actions relevant to their businesses. This was a forum in which attendees were able to ask a number of probing questions and get someone with deep NBN knowledge to provide a perspective.


Left to Right: Chris Eldridge (4impact), Jim Barclay (Logan City Council), Mark Thomson (4impact), David Bartlett

We at 4impact are very grateful to Jim Barclay from Logan City Council for organising the breakfast and inviting David to speak and 4impact to attend. Similarly we are indebted to David for flying up from Tasmania for the event and so generously giving his time to talk about this topic. We are looking forward to seeing David up our way again!