Stage one was announced on with the first customers being connected a year later. Stage one included connections to premises in Smithton, Scottsdale and Midway Point and construction of fibre 'backbones' from Port Latta to Smithton, Cambridge to Midway Point, Midway Point to Triabunna, George Town to Scottsdale and Scottsdale to St Helens. On completion of stage one, 4,000 premises were offered fibre installation; 51 agreed to be 'NBN Ready' (at no cost), but only 10.9% actually took up the service. As of , 712 premises had an active service and 11 premises were awaiting service activation by a retail service provider (RSP). The Tasmanian Parliament passed opt-out legislation on , to allow NBN Co to install fibre connections to premises unless the property owners explicitly decline the installation. The fibre connection is free, however, if the installation is declined and a connection is ordered at a later date, NBN Co may charge a connection fee. The bill passed the Tasmanian lower house with the support of all members. During his second reading speech, Premier of Tasmania David Bartlett said the take-up rates were 'a good early result'; however, he said it was 'important to increase the participation rate'. In his closing remarks, Bartlett said '[the] NBN in Tasmania is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create jobs and contribute to a new economic direction'. In her second reading speech on behalf of the Tasmanian Opposition, Elise Archer said 'the NBN is an important infrastructure', but that 'the State Liberals have some concern that the NBN business model seems to rely more and more on eliminating competition and other technologies'. Stages two and three were announced on and , respectively. Approximately 11,150 premises in Sorell, Deloraine, George Town, St Helens, Triabunna, Kingston Beach and South Hobart were included in stage two. Stage three includes approximately 90,000 premises in Hobart, Launceston, Devonport and Burnie. Stage two will include a trial of expanding the FTTP footprint to areas not included in the initial rollout. The trial will allow individuals and councils to pay the incremental cost of a fibre connection over fixed wireless in order to receive a fibre connection from NBN Co. The costs will include provisioning further space in exchanges and rolling out additional fibre optic cables. At the time of launch, the access prices for RSPs were temporarily set at a flat rate of A$300 per premises with no ongoing monthly