C.O.I.N's - Communities of Integrated Networks
Wed, Sep 22, 2004; by Bill Coppinger.
Why a Community of Integrated Networks [C.O.I.N.'s]?
It is often stated that, as a driver of economic development in the 21st century, communications infrastructure is as important as roads and railways were in the 19th century.
[SOR 2005-06]
The most detailed socio-economic scan of the Macedon, Mitchell and Murrindindi shires in the last 10 years highlighted little if any coordination of education provision with health, youth, employment or other services.
A number of communities within this region demonstrate some of the highest rates of youth disengagement [and associated social and economic problems] in the state.
A cross-sectoral and community alliance of local and regional providers already exists and is working to develop strategic initiatives designed to reform programme and service delivery to the communities they serve.
There is lots of expertise and specialist abilities in many communities, but often access to these resources is limited.
New and vastly expanded access to Telecommunications infrastructures, the services that would provide the opportunity to support new and emerging skill and enterprise development is at the heart of our strategic focus on improving telecommunications in our region.
We continue to advocate and promote this key economic driver on our "Community Broadband" website.
www.centralrangesllen.org.au/communitybroadband/
Update October 2008
The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, met with industry and business leaders on the 10th of September to discuss and plan the vision for Australia's future in the global digital economy.
As members of the CRLLEN will know, we have worked closely with both the previous Federal Government and we hope now with the new Federal Government to advocate for the importnatce of coordinated and synchronised activity to support improved telelcommunications infrastructure across the Macedon, Mitchell and Murrindindi Shires to enhance employment, training and service provision opportunities for young people, local businesses and the broader communities.
Senator Conroy said:
"We need to position now for Australia to realise the full benefits from the Governments infrastructure and other digital economy investments, and realise our ambition to become one of the worlds leading digital economies," Senator Conroy said.
[Source: DBCDE.gov.au ]
Our newest environmental scan for 2008-2011 has recently been published and it contains a series of stylised facts that have been determined from census data from every LGA in Australia.
These stylised facts describe the main drivers of growth, decline and migration. The stylised facts have been determined from analysis of all of Australia’s regions and were originally developed as part of the State of the Regions series of reports, produced for the Australian Local Government Association by our data partner, the The National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR) .
They provide an important insight into what young people need to ensure a sustainable future.
One key stylised fact about the strong correlation between access to telecommunications bandwidth and dispoasable income is critical for regional planners and all levels of government to undertsand.
We continue to work with all levels of Government to develop a coherent understanding about the benefits to education, training and employment outcomes for our communities be developing a coordinated approach to telecommunications infrastructure and service provision.
Update: April 2008
Broadband Fibre to Schools
The Australian Government has allocated $100 million to contribute to the provision of fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband connections to Australian schools to deliver internet download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second.
A detailed plan for the delivery of fibre connections to Australian schools will be developed by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations in consultation with the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) and its National Broadband Network (NBN) program. The Government is committed to providing $4.7 billion towards the roll out of the NBN.
We intend to investigate and pursue any potential synergies between the newly announced initiatives and regional development activities in our area. For more details please view:
www.centralrangesllen.org.au/communitybroadband/
The Objectives of the network are:
- To improve the outcomes for young people entering the work-force or further study.
- To improve the skills available in local communities.
- To reduce the recurring costs of modern communications to agencies in the region
- To provide infrastructure that can be used as an attractor for higher levels of education, training and particular enterprise/employment
- To promote collaboration between existing organisations with overlapping requirements and resources
- To improve the range of services and applications available to communities in these areas
- To provide mechanisms by which communities and local economies can promote regional skills, both internally to the communities and externally to the rest of Australia and the world
The network is intended to provide services to a range of agencies, communities and individuals in the region, including:
- Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education organisations;
- Healthcare agencies;
- Vocational training agencies; and
- Community and youth agencies such as libraries to name just a few.
There are some relevant case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of this type of collaboration. These include:
Many similar networks exist. The goal is to create a series of bridges between existing networks and build capability, particularly in our smaller communities, with a view to synchronizing and expanding delivery right across the learning needs of our communities and our local economies.
Update: September 2006
The "Central Ranges Demand Aggregation Broker" initiative was established in August 2005 and ran until June 30th 2006. The Macedon, Mitchell and Murrindindi Shires partnered with the Central Ranges Local Learning and Employment Network to successfully bid for Commonwealth Funding to support the a Community Based Demand Aggregation Broker. It received a $248,000 grant to conduct a broadband demand aggregation project during this time.
The Macedon Ranges Shire was the lead agent in partnership with the Mitchell and Murrindindi Shires, supported by the Central Ranges Local Learning and Employment Network.
The Central Ranges Broker project received very strong support from the Local Member for McEwen and Minister for Small Business and Tourism, The Hon. Fran Bailey.
Funding via this project has allowed very detailed knowledge of future need and demand to be documented as well as securing improved services for some of the communities across the region.
We will continue with this strategy and look for further synergies that we can use to improve telecommunications infrastructure across our region.
Update: July 2005
As has been reported in May , the CRLLEN has been successful in securing 0.248 Million from the Federal Government's Community Based Demand Aggregation Broker Programme. The project is a joint partnership between the Macedon Ranges, Mitchell and Murrindindi Shires. Macedon Ranges Shire will be the lead agent.
The project is the Central Ranges Community Based Demand Aggregation Broker. The broker will work with individuals, businesses, councils and other broadband users to aggregate demand in their region and then attract the best mix of broadband service providers for local needs
The CRLLEN is working with Federal, State and Local governments to identify the needs of communities, businesses and individuals across the CRLLEN area and develop strategies that will produce a coherent telecommunications strategy that will support increased investment, employment and education opportunities across the region.
To view the communications to members and stakeholders, please follow the links below:
Communications include :
- Telecomms Strategy Update [July 2005]
- Community Demand Aggregation Broker Tender ! [June 2005]
- Community Demand Aggregation Broker application successful! [May 2005]
- View the outline of the September 29th 2004 Workshop. [Sept 2004]
- Presentations from the September 29 Workshop can be downloaded from here [Registration required]
- Copy of Email circulated on Monday September 20th including an agenda for the day.
Download high resolution Satellite Image of possible 'COIN's Coverage across three Shires [1200 x 668 - 960k] - Copy of Email circulated to community members [September 8th 2004.]
