$80 million deal between SA Government and Telstra to boost internet speeds in public schools

Internet speeds in public schools will skyrocket by up to 1000 per cent under a State Government deal with Telstra, that the education minister says will also benefit country businesses.

• Labor to ‘work around NBN” for fast school fibre
• Four in five SA public schools lack fibre-to-campus
• Aussies fed up with slow, unreliable internet

Internet speeds in public schools will skyrocket by up to 1000 per cent under an $80 million State Government deal with Telstra.

And the policy will have spin-off benefits for towns and businesses across the state, which will also be able to tap into the new network.

By mid-2020, 514 schools — 99 per cent of all schools — will have a high-speed, fibre optic internet connection.

The rollout requires thousands of kilometres of cable to be installed across the state, meaning small businesses, public agencies, hospitals and independent schools will also have the opportunity to obtain much faster connections.

Education Minister John Gardner said it was “a major building block for our aim to deliver the best education system in Australia”.

“Our young people will be able to tap into a wealth of learning resources that would otherwise be beyond their reach, with opportunities to connect and collaborate with contemporaries, learning institutions and businesses from across the country and around the globe,” he said.

“It will also give principals and teachers more seamless access to Education Department support such as curriculum resources and professional development.”

In April, The Advertiser revealed only one in five SA public schools has a high-speed fibre to the campus internet connection, compared to almost every school interstate. In some cases it takes students 15 minutes just to log on to their school’s network.

Premier Steven Marshall said students “from Yalata to Bordertown” would benefit from the fibre optic rollout.

“The expanded fibre optic network will not only provide high speed internet to our public schools, it also puts a fibre optic connection within reach of thousands of small businesses, public agencies and independent schools.”

Telstra Enterprise chief customer officer John Ieraci said Telstra said the project would “level the technological playing field for public school students in regional and remote locations”.

“(It’s) incredibly important, not only for the classroom experience of the students of today, but ultimately the future competitiveness of the state,” he said.

“It will now be possible for almost every public school student across the state to have access to educational collaboration tools as well as emerging virtual and augmented reality solutions.”

The Education Department and Telstra are exploring alternative solutions for the four schools too remote for the fibre optic network.

Before the March state election, the former Labor government promised to raise average school internet speeds 10 times, and up to 100 times faster in some cases, with an uncosted policy it expected to run into tens of millions of dollars.