Elloise Farrow-Smith

Updated yesterday at 4:28pm

The start-up business sector on the north coast says the Federal Government's innovation announcements will make people scream louder for the NBN.

A $1 billion plan aims to kick start an innovation culture in Australia.

Doctor Dan Swan from the Byron Bay business hub StartInno said poor internet connectivity is causing headaches for new regional businesses.

Dr Swan was this year awarded a doctorate in Creative Industries and Innovation from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.

Dan Swan has spent many years working in and reflecting on the industry and created his first dot com 20 years ago, fresh out of university.

He applauds the Prime Minister's efforts but said the announcement needs technological back-up for Australia to succeed.

"I've got no doubt this is going to make people scream a lot louder and if we want these big investors to come over like a Microsoft or a Google and build a data centre that's going to employ lots of people we've got to have the infrastructure, that's the first point," Dr Swan said.

Dr Swan said the northern New South Wales region is already a hub of new ideas.

But he believes those ideas will languish unless internet connection becomes more reliable.

"Regionally we're not going to see any decent bandwidth speed for the next couple of years, nobody really knows what's happening around the NBN, are we going to get fibre?" he said.

"Some of the regional centres like here in Byron Bay or its industrial estate or in Mullumbimby they're not going to get fixed wireless, which is pretty poor pathetic connectivity."

Topics: internet-technology, byron-bay-2481, lismore-2480

First posted yesterday at 3:57pm ABC North Coast.