The Victorian government and NBN have announced plans to establish a cyber security operations centre in Melbourne by 2017.
The centre, which will be located in the Docklands area, is designed to be the first line of defence against cyber threats to the NBN. It will provide a collection of services for the delivery of detection, identification, triage and management of cyber events.
NBN has plans to create 700 jobs in Melbourne including cyber security, technical support, administration, specialised ICT engineering and customer support roles.
Four hundred jobs will be created over the next two years and 300 more will be generated by the project in construction, maintenance and technical support roles.
NBN will also be expanding its network and services operations centre in Docklands.
Communications minister Mitch Fifield said that technical specialists will be employed at the 24/7 cyber security operations centre.
"In coming years, millions of Australians will be reliant on the NBN, so it is vital that continued cyber security for this important infrastructure is protected and in place at all times," the minister said.
According to Victorian small business, innovation and trade minister, Philip Dalidakis, the state government had worked hard to secure the NBN’s decision to locate the centre in Melbourne, providing assistance through the $508 million Premier’s Jobs and Investment Fund.
NBN has established several facilities in Victoria including the network's nerve centre and equipment testing hub. Its Victorian workforce currently stands at 2300 staff. NBN also operates a customer service centre on the Gold Coast while its corporate headquarters are based in Sydney.
In other news, NBN formally launched its 50/20 megabits per second speed tier for fixed wireless, the company said this morning.
NBN began a customer pilot with the new speed tier earlier this year.
Previously the maximum speed available to end uses on the LTE-based fixed wireless service was 25/5Mbps.