Tasmania is the most NBN-connected state or territory in the country but it doesn't mean much if people don't know how to use it, the state's peak industry body says.
More than 90 per cent of the apple isle has access to the National Broadband Network, with some 32,000 homes and businesses to be connected in the final stage of delivery.
TasICT CEO William Kerstin has told a federal parliamentary inquiry into the NBN rollout older Tasmanians and children needed more eduction to fully unlock its benefits.
"It doesn't matter how connected we are if people don't know how to use it," he said in Hobart.
Older people should be taught how to use the internet to stay in touch with family and access medical information and children should learn coding, Mr Kerstin recommended.
He said the state ranked the worst in the country for digital literacy in Australia's Digital Pulse report from Deloitte Access Economics.
Earlier this month, the federal government championed the halfway point of the NBN's Australia-wide rollout, which has been plagued by reports of dropouts and poor connection speeds.
A Tasmanian astronomer selected by NASA to stream footage of a comet last month had to abandon the task because of a faulty cable.
Mr Kerstin said delivery had improved in the state over the past two and a half years but the network's full potential was hampered by its brief to turn a profit.
"The issue that we've got with connectivity is that we don't approach it as infrastructure," he said.
"We focus a lot on the expectation that the NBN makes a profit and don't look at the long-term requirements of businesses and consumers to be able to connect to the internet to help with digital transformation."
The inquiry continues this week in Tasmania with public hearings at Launceston Tuesday and Burnie.
The NBN project began under the Rudd Labor government in 2007 and is expected to be finished by 2020.
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