An affordable, high speed Broadband service is essential for me, my community and all Australians but our politicians don’t care.
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They are spending our taxpayer dollars on a National Infrastructure Build that is the equivalent of a goat track up the side of a steep rocky mountain.
I live 10 minutes drive from the township of Bellingen and 25 minutes from the East Coast in the Bellingen Shire, NSW. My location is certainly not remote.
Yes, one might say it is regional Australia and maybe even semi-rural but the real problem is that I do not live in a capital city.
Approximately 50 per cent of the population of Australia lives outside our capital cities and yet we are being treated as second class citizens regarding providing us with the same affordable, high Speed Broadband Service as those in capital cities.
It appears that it won’t change the status quo which political party wins government. Maybe we do have to close our doors and move to a capital city or move overseas to a country that has invested wisely in the telecommunications industry.
Maybe we should all move to our capital cities, but then who would grow our food and what would the impact be on our export trade.
I am currently connected to the internet via an ADSL line and even though my speed may not be as high as the promised NBN service, at least I have 50 Gigabytes (Gb) any time of the day for only $19.95 per month.
I have been advised that I will have to connect to the Long Term Satellite Service (LTSS) at a cost of $69.95 per month (cheapest available ISP at the moment) and I will only have access to 40Gb in peak time but I can access 60Gb in the wee small hours of the day during my sleeping/ dream off peak hours. If I were connected to Fixed Wireless one of ISP’s quotes is $34.95 for 90Gb, but again with time of the day restrictions or if I was connected to Fibre to the Node one ISP is charging $44.95 per month for 90Gb.
However, even though I would be able to access 30Gb anytime, I can only access the extra 60Gb during Off Peak hours. The upload and download speeds offered by the packages above are less than a quarter of those offered by city based fibre to the home packages.
ABC News report Tuesday 24th May 2016 (http://ab.co/1sQWtY2): NBN shortcomings in rural areas could lead to “data drought”.
“Farmers are calling for the National Broadband Network to roll out more fixed wireless services in remote and regional areas, with many fearing they will be limited to satellite internet access. The technical and topographical limitations of the fixed wireless technology mean for some farmers and agribusinesses, satellite is the only option.
“The satellite should be there for people as a last resort, who are truly isolated” … “there’s about three per cent of the Australian population, who are truly isolated and have no other option.”
Even though the signal range for a Fixed Wireless Tower may be 14km there is a dramatic reduction of the signal after 10km.
The NBN must build more Fixed Wireless towers across regional/ rural Australia and use the satellite to only service remote Australia If regional/ rural areas are also forced to connect to the satellite the data capacity will be oversubscribed.
Our Bellingen community requires additional Fixed Wireless Towers to be constructed to fulfil the NBN commitment of ‘access to fast and reliable connections’ and avoid ‘Data Drought’.
It should be noted that in the recent NBN Media Release of May 5 advised that “users on the NBN network consume approximately one third more data than the national average connection, with a figure of 112 gigabytes per month as at December 2015".
Our community has four concerns:
- Equity
- Access including adequate data capacity;
- Speed
- Affordability
So how have our politicians assisted our community’s concerns? Well, mostly they haven’t.
Nationals: Our local Federal Member Luke Hartsuyker did present our community’s case to the Federal Communications Minister Fifield and the NBN however his representation failed on all levels. Just how hard did he try?
Nationals: Senator Fiona Nash Deputy Leader of the Nationals and Minister Regional Communications did not even have the courtesy to acknowledge or reply to my letter (posted and emailed)
Labor: Jason Dean Clare Shadow Minister for Communications has not replied to my email and associated attached documents
Greens: Senator Scott Ludlam Co-deputy leader of the Australian Greens and Senator for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy has not acknowledged or replied to my email.
I also copied Senator Lee Rhiannon, Jane Oakley and Michael Osborne all of whom are seeking election to the Senate in this year’s Federal Election and none of them have acknowledged my email.
The failed state of the NBN should be an election issue and even though I have requested this no one politician or party is listening or cares.
The ABC program The Drum on March 2 this year (http://ab.co/22pPyAQ) stated: “Turnbull's multi-technology mix (MTM) network has blown out twice in projected cost - first, from $29.5 billion to $41 billion, and then last year to ‘up to’ $56 billion. And instead of delivering 25 Mbps by 2016, now the MTM network isn't expected to be finished until 2020 - only a year earlier than Labor expected to finish its rollout. NBN's own chairman has admitted meeting this 2020 target will require a ‘heroic’ effort”.
This should resonate with our political representatives but all they are discussing is the leaked internal document regarding the Fibre to the Node and where has the money come from to pay for the NBN – our taxpayer dollars.
The NBN Co Limited (trading as NBN) is an Australian government-owned corporation tasked to design, build and operate Australia's National Broadband Network.
Yes, NBN Co is a wholly owned Commonwealth Government Business Enterprise (GBE) reporting to two shareholder ministers: the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Communications.
There are two additional concerns that our community has raised: The Mobile Phone Black spots in Australia including my local community, and, the lack of an updated Universal Service Obligation to include Internet and Mobile Phone services as well as the current basic Telephone Service. These matters remain outstanding.
The federal government of Australia (past and present) have failed and broken all their promises.
So where does our community go from here?
It appears that it won’t change the status quo which political party wins government. Maybe we do have to close our doors and move to a capital city or move overseas to a country that has invested wisely in the telecommunications industry.