WHILE Tamworth is known as the “city of lights”, Armidale is “the city with the internet”, federal member for New England Barnaby Joyce has said.
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On Friday Mr Joyce accepted a certificate of completion for Armidale becoming the first Australian city completely on the National Broadband Network.
The ceremony was held at Whitehack, a web security business that relocated from the United States to Armidale due to the city's NBN connection.
Tamworth is forecast to receive fibre to the node connections in 2017.
The completion of the network in Armidale was a great sign for the whole of regional Australia, which is eager to be connected to faster internet speeds, Mr Joyce said.
“Everyone wants to go in front of the next town, every town has a very good reason why they should be in front of the other town,” he said.
“Of course we would love to be able to do that but we have to work in a methodical plan in bringing this across our nation.”
Armidale Dumaresq Mayor Herman Beyersdorf also spoke at the event and praised Council’s role in the development and promotion of the NBN.
“We did establish a highly successful digital hub and digital program which was federally funded but Armidale Dumaresq Council ran it,” he said.
"It was quite successful at bringing - what many of us might see as quite simple - but teaching people how to operate a mouse.
“It has got to be from the bottom up as well as the top down.”