Australian Senator advocates national broadband plan

Australia's Senator Stephen Conroy was awarded with the OSA's 2011 Advocate of Optics on September 29, 2011, at the recent International Quantum Electronics Conference/Conference for Lasers and Electro-Optics (IQEC/CLEO) Pacific Rim 2011 held in Sydney. Senator Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, has been the champion of Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN). Australian officials aim at achieving a nationwide rollout of fiber-optic technology through the NBN that will bring communication speeds between 100 and 1,000 MB to 93 percent of Australian homes, schools and businesses. The project will also provide a stimulus to the Australian optical communications industry, which has recently been evolved. Conroy was appointed Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy after the August 2010 federal election.