East Tamar residents are shocked to learn they will miss out on high-speed NBN.
The NBN plan denies many Tamar Valley communities access to the ‘fibre optic’ network. In an area where mobile phones are already unreliable, residents and businesses will also lose landline telephone and internet services when copper is due to be phased out.
When he raised the issue in Parliament on 19 October 2010, Greens Member for Bass, Kim Booth MP, said: “The [then] Premier says the NBN is an innovative solution to overcome the isolation of island Tasmania, but by leaving the Tamar Valley off the list he is relegating residents and businesses to a technological backwater in which they are condemned to life in the slow lane, which will translate as slower growth and lower investment.”
Dilston residents, only 5kms from the northernmost Launceston fibreoptic connection point, must make do with patchy ‘line-of-sight’ wireless service – one tenth the speed of fibre optic broadband.
Windermere, Swan Bay, Hillwood and Mount Direction, the entire commuter corridor, will miss out on ‘fibre to the home’. Windermere resident Trixie Gillard said: “The mobile phone signal is notoriously bad in this area, so everyone is dreading the proposed wireless internet option. We’ve got drop-out problems and power outages. When the power goes off so does the system. What do we do then? ”
Community concerns raised at a packed community meeting held recently at Dilston Hall, also attended by Launceston City Councillors Jeremy Ball and Rosemary Armitage, residents resolved to convince local politicians and councillors to call on the State Government to overturn the NBN Co’s current plan for Tasmania (TNBN Co).
Subsequent networking in this tight-knit community has confirmed growing dissatisfaction at being marginalised. East Tamar residents refuse to accept their NBN alternative is an unspecified wireless or satellite service with inferior speeds, quality and scalability to meet the demands of the digital future.
“As taxpayers we have every right to demand equal opportunity regarding the NBN – don’t forget, along with everyone else, we’re paying for it. As the rest of the country is ‘moving forward’ why should we end up worse off than we are now?” said Ms Gillard. “Maybe the new Premier will put us back on the map.”
Website: tvbnc.wetpaint.com/
Download information kit: 28_1_2011_Get_Connected_info_kit_F.pdf
