The ability to cut travel costs down and develop a budding business from home without the costly overheads will transform regional Australia, according to a Riverina business success story.

NBNCo promises speeds that will enable users to download a two-hour high definition movie in only 16 minutes at its optimal speed of 50 mega bits per second (Mbps).

Current ADSL2+ speeds are around 10Mbps, which pushes the download time out to up to around an hour.

Regional Grants, Tenders and Corporate Services director Dianna Somerville said her farm near Collingullie has been connected to the fixed wireless network for some time.

She said it allowed her to grow her business from her home.

“Connectivity is key to running a business,” Ms Somerville said.

“The higher speeds in regional areas allows people to run not only local, but global businesses.

Ms Somerville said there was still more work to be done to put regional Australians on a level playing field with their city counterparts.

“This is just the first step – as technology gets quicker and faster, we’ll demand more,” she said.

“There’s still a lot of spots to be filled – mobile coverage still has plenty of blackspots.

“No one should be disadvantaged because they live in regional areas.”

Ms Somerville said the NBN rollout will see what she calls an “e-change” in Wagga – people moving away from the city to take advantage of the region’s quality of life and better work/life balance.

NBNCo announced that Wagga suburbs Gobbagombalin, Estella and Boorooma were switched on to the network at the end of June.

Construction was also well under way in North Wagga, central, East Wagga, Turvey Park, Kooringal, Mount Austin, Moorong, Ashmont, Glenfield, Lloyd and Forest Hill, with those suburbs to be connected from September through to December.