The NBN for Bendigo Working Group was yesterday putting a positive spin on the federal government’s 12-month NBN construction plan, which Bendigo was left out of.

NBN for Bendigo Working Group president Bruce Winzar said like Ballarat, Bendigo was well placed “both in a regional sense and in its readiness to be connected” for the fibre optic rollout.

Mr Winzar visited Bendigo web design business Design Experts yesterday to promote the working group’s campaign.

Design Experts co-owner Kylie Gentle said slow internet connection affected her business directly and was keen for the fibre optic broadband network to reach Bendigo.

With broadband, the company would be able to work with website developers remotely and tap into a wider market.

Last week Mrs Gentle said her company’s Echuca staff member had to drive down to Bendigo to physically collect a file rather than wait hours for it to download.

“If it takes two or three hours to download a file – that’s two or three hours that she has to wait,” Mrs Gentle said.

Mrs Gentle said later broadband connection would also affect the business as far as their competition was concerned.

“If we don’t have (reliable) internet, we don’t have business,” Mrs Gentle said. “It impacts our development team. The guys are always putting things on the web and online.”

Mr Winzar said the working group had started lobbying politicians, including federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.

“There’s 600 councils and probably around half of them have made contact (with him) regarding the early rollout,” he said.

The NBN 12-month schedule will be reviewed quarterly and it is expected new towns will be added to the early rollout.