[LINK] Australian Broadband Applications Laboratory

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

By Suzanne Tindal, ZDNet.com.au on September 28th, 2011 (36 mins ago)
www.zdnet.com.au/nbn-lab-to-create-an-aussie-gates-gillard-339323232.htm


Yesterday the Victorian Government announced the launch of the Australian 
Broadband Applications Laboratory (ABAL) — a facility where businesses 
can pay to test out their applications over high-speed broadband.

The lab is located at the University of Melbourne, under the umbrella of 
the Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES), which had already 
been launched, and then provided with $3 million worth of state 
government funding.

The laboratory provides a broadband network that replicates the National 
Broadband Network (NBN) set-up, enabling businesses to test new products 
to later be run over the NBN. 

The standard testing speed will be 100Mbps, but the laboratory could 
configure the network to provide speeds up to 10Gbps. 

Any Australian business can use it from now for a fee.

To start with, IBES will employ two additional staff to run ABAL, but the 
Victorian Government expected this number to grow to 10 by 2014.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard spoke at the launch, saying that with 
challenges such as an ageing population, Australia needed to increase 
productivity and broadband is the key to doing so.

"The United Nations has stated that 'broadband is the next tipping point, 
the next truly transformational technology'," she said. "The NBN will 
provide the basis for new methods, processes and products to drive 
efficiency and productivity growth."

She said that Australia did have many smart people, but that these people 
needed the tools to be able to prosper.

"We celebrate stories like Bill Gates, the university drop-out who'd 
started mucking around with computers as a 13-year-old kid. Or Steve 
Jobs, building the first Apple computers in his parents' garage. I 
sincerely believe that there are people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in 
this country. In our schools and universities and businesses. But they 
need the hardware and the innovative climate to succeed," she said, also 
calling attention to Lars and Jens Rasmussen, who invented Google Maps in 
Sydney.

"Productivity begins here," she said. "It is Australia's non-negotiable 
passport to the future."

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Cheers,
Stephen