Complaints from across Australia about the national broadband network would come as no surprise to residents in Dubbo and the Orana region.
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To complaints by Sydney and other big city dwellers they would probably say … welcome to our world.
The NBN and many of its failings were highlighted in the ABC TV’s Four Corners program on Monday. Dubbo featured on the program and in earlier radio broadcasts promoting it.
The Dubbo reaction was a call for an end to the “digital divide”. Of course, that would probably mean the federal government spending another fairly large fortune. And that is without fixing the mobile phone service divide.
Four-sevenths of Dubbo received fibre to the premises (FttP) under the faster but more expensive early rollout under the Labor federal government. The rest received fibre to the node (FttN) after the Coalition came to power with a cheaper NBN version.
It has been suggested locally that the government revert to FttP and if it won’t then there should be an affordable option for residents to upgrade. There is already opportunity to switch but at a potential cost of thousands of dollars.
It is all about fast broadband – vital for the economy, businesses and residents. No, it is not about being able to watch movies online.
Reports are legend about business losses from poor connectivity. And the government has created a connectivity “class system” in Dubbo and elsewhere. Digital “aristocrats” have FttP and the “lower classes” have FttN. If they want to be upwardly mobile, the “second class” have to pay their own way.
Businessman Mathew Dickerson sums it up “… I think it’s incredibly unfair that someone on one side of the street gets it [FttP technology] for free and someone across the road ... they get it for thousands of dollars”.
Not exactly the Aussie “fair go”.
There are views that the NBN appears a massive waste of money and even a potential brake on the economy. It was originally supposed to be a gigantic boost.
There is plenty of fault, understandably fuelling a frantic blame game, but an inescapable conclusion is taxpayers and consumers are paying for the manifold mistakes of politicians.
It is time for them to now find the fix … at a speed quicker than some of us get on the internet.