DIY skill secured NBN connection
A HANDY piece of do-it-yourself engineering by a property developer in Mullumbimby has made his site the first connected to the National Broadband Network on the Northern Rivers.
The fibre optic NBN was connected to the Tallowood Ridge village on Tuckeroo Rd, Mullumbimby earlier this month.
It is now waiting to be plugged into the first houses - being built now, the developer Peter Freeman said.
Organising one of the first deployments of the NBN in the area was part timing and part DIY know-how he said.
"When I put in the application to get the NBN I had already designed the fibre optic network for the site," Mr Freeman said.
"I downloaded the manuals from the NBN site and studied them as best I could. Then I went ahead and designed it. There was a steep learning curve."
The timing was also spot on.
"You had to be ready to go with the development at the time of the application and we were."
The other requirement was that the site contained more than 100 house plots. Tallowood Ridge had 240.
The Wollongbar Park Estate off Sneaths Rd is also due to be connected to the NBN ahead of the general rollout.
The NBN should be connected to the site before the first homes have been built in roughly two months, owner Geoff Lawson said.
To connect the Tallowood Ridge village to rest of the Australian network a mainline has been laid next to the road into the post office in Mullumbimby.
But this does not mean that areas of Mullumbimby situated near the mainline can be connected to the NBN ahead of the general rollout schedule.
New sites operated under a different set of rules to existing sites, a spokesperson for the NBN said.
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