The federal government's $43 billion national broadband network has taken its first commercial steps with the release yesterday of tenders for the project's Tasmanian leg. In a joint announcement, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett confirmed that utility Aurora Energy would issue a request for tender for the supply of fibre-optic cabling in support of its NBN plans. But opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin said the government's promise that the rollout would start this month was "pure deception". "This confirms that the Rudd government will have been in office almost three years without having delivered a single new broadband connection," Senator Minchin said. Tasmania is the first state that will receive government-backed fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology thanks to a bid that the state government and Aurora submitted for funding under the defunct fibre-to-the-node NBN plan. Mr Bartlett said the announcement followed design and planning work that Aurora had undertaken. Physical installation of the Tasmanian network would begin shortly and wholesale services were expected to be available in the second quarter of next calendar year. About 200,000 premises will be connected to the state's fibre network, which promises speeds of 100 megabits per second. Tasmania will follow the national strategy of using wireless and satellite links to establish the network in areas where fibre cabling is impractical. A memorandum of understanding for a new operating company for the Tasmanian portion of the network, to be known as TNBNCo, has also been signed. The Tasmanian entity, jointly owned by Aurora, will be a subsidiary of the national NBNCo. Senator Conroy said the move marked the start of the first stage of the rollout of the huge broadband infrastructure project. "Tasmania has a long-standing disadvantage in accessing high-speed broadband and is the logical test-bed" for the project, he said, adding that the project would provide lessons for the mainland component of the NBN. "We don't assume that we know everything before we have already commenced," Senator Conroy said. "We have sound plans, but we expect that as the pilot NBN rollout in Tasmania progresses, we will discover issues and challenges." Tenders for the supply of fibre cabling will close on August 14. KEY POINTS · Aurora Energy will issue a request for tender for the supply of fibre-optic cabling to the Tasmanian leg. · Wholesale services are expected to become available in the second quarter of 2010.