A digital strategy needs to be developed for the region to help encourage a younger demographic to the city, Western Plains Regional Council said.
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Council administrator Michael Kneipp made the comment at the July ordinary meeting on Wednesday night, in regards to the NBN rollout in Dubbo.
“It’s the biggest infrastructure project in Australia’s history and I just hope that we take advantage of it as a business tool rather than it just being used to download movies off Netflix or Stan,” Mr Kneipp said.
“That’s something we need to get our heads together and think about.”
Mr Kneipp said he had already heard of people taking advantage of the internet, including one women currently living in Western Australia who planned to run the Masters in Radiology program for Monash University from Dubbo.
He said as a radiology course a lot of the assignments had a high digital component, but Dubbo’s technology made it possible to teach via distance.
“Hopefully we have a lot of students who go off to university and come back and set up their business in Dubbo because that’s the age group we’re losing, those 18-35 year-olds,” he said.
Nearly 16,500 homes and businesses in Dubbo are able to connect to the NBN network, making it one of the first areas in Australia where the NBN rollout is complete.
The rollout was one of the highlights for the April to June quarter in council’s economic development action plan report.
Other standouts for the three months included: Fly Pelican flights from Dubbo to Newcastle being announced and the successful RFDS grant application for the flight simulator.
Council’s manager marketing and communications Natasha Comber said the Fly Pelican flights had been well received by the community.
“It’s running as well as expected, their load capacity would be 40 to 50 per cent, which is what they had planned. They’re currently doing three days a week- Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays- that’s set to increase with passenger need,” Ms Comber said.