NBN fibre rollout to be completed or underway in a third of the country over the next three years

Construction to be underway or complete in areas containing over 3.5 million homes and businesses in 1500 communities in every state and territory.

City of Prospect welcomes NBN Co announcing Stage 1 of the large-scale rollout of the National Broadband Network.

Director of Economic Development Steve Harrison said this will give local communities security knowing when the network will be built and time to prepare and plan their digital economy strategies so that come construction they will be ready to connect and make every post a winner.

"It also makes the roll out in Prospect even more significant as we are part of small national community of first adopters, like Willunga, that are paving the way in terms of learnings, engagement and construction, that will help speed up the national roll out' Mr Harrison said.

‘One third of the planet is now online, every second there 20m google searches, every 15 seconds something sells on e-bay. When you consider that the digital economy in Australia’s is now estimated to be worth $44b and growing at around 7% each year, and globally in three years it will be worth in just the top 20 counties $4 trillion, who would not want a share of that pie?” Mr Harrison said.

'It is also great to see City of Holdfast and our near neighbours Norwood, Payneham and St Peters are in the three plan. The demand to use this infrastructure in those council areas is high, and will not come fast enough for some businesses' Mr Harrison said.

Over the next three years, construction of the fibre optic component of the network will be underway or completed in areas containing 3.5 million premises in 1500 communities in every state and territory in Australia - up to one third of the nation’s homes and businesses.

The latest communities to benefit from the vital upgrade to Australia’s communications infrastructure were announced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard at an event in Sydney this morning.

The full list of localities where the network is up and running, where work is underway and where work is scheduled to begin before mid-2015 can be viewed on the Communities in the rollout page. Communities can also check the progress of the rollout by typing in their location or postcode into the interactive NBN rollout map.

The figures include the three quarters of a million premises where construction work is underway or set to begin this year, including the eight early locations where the fibre network is already in service.