A $20 million deal between Ergon Energy subsidiary Nexium Telecommunications and BHP Billiton-Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) will "revolutionise" the way the coal producer does business in regional Queensland, Energy Minister John Mickel says.
Mickel was in Rockhampton today to congratulate the parties on the signing of the 10-year agreement that gives BMA access, through retailer Equant, to spare capacity bought up by Nexium on fibre optic networks used by Ergon Energy, Powerlink, Southern Cross Telecommunications, Uecomm and Queensland Rail.
"This is the ‘smart state' delivering opportunities for central Queensland. For the first time, BMA's 14 Bowen Basin mine sites will be linked with key offices in Brisbane and Melbourne via a high-speed fibre optic network," he says.
"It's bringing communications in the region into the 21st Century and I'd like to see other companies taking advantage of spare capacity on the networks.
"The availability of high-speed communications means that companies can base their operations in regional Queensland with confidence that they can stay in touch with the rest of the world."
Ergon Energy CEO Tony Bellas says the network is the first of its kind to deliver high-speed networking to BMA's regional coal interests, and will complement other high-speed networks used in other parts of the world.
"BMA is a regional Queensland business that now has access to world-class competitively-priced, high-speed telecommunications services that are taken for granted in the southeast of the state," he says.
"The opportunity to provide competitive telecommunications services arose out of an Ergon Energy need to upgrade its fibre optic network to improve the reliability and performance of the electricity network and reduce both the costs of operations and expenditure on purchase of its telecommunications services.
"This has led to spare capacity on our network, giving telecommunications companies the opportunity to plug major customers into Ergon Energy's own broadband network for competitive phone and data services in regional Queensland."
Nexium Telecommunications general manager Andrew Deme says the company has been able to form close working relationships with Powerlink, Southern Cross Telecommunications, Uecomm, Equant, QCN and QR and hopes to develop these relationships to further telecommunications solutions in the regions.
"Nexium will re-define the meaning of the word ‘broadband', offering data transfer 10 to 1,000 times the speed of ADSL," he says.