Without leadership and change, Australia risks growing and entrenching the digital divide between urban and rural telecommunications users.
The Rural, Regional and Remote Communications Coalition (RRRCC) has been formed to highlight the collective concerns of families, businesses and communities about inequitable access to telecommunications services in the bush.
Our members include some of the most innovative businesses and individuals in Australia. Yet we remain locked out of future economic growth and prosperity through the digital divide – undermining Australia’s productivity.
We firmly believe that access to better communications services across regional Australia will lead to better outcomes for the entire nation.
As a Coalition, we believe there are five fundamental outcomes that must be addressed to ensure equitable connectivity for regional and remote consumers. These are:
These outcomes are ambitious, achievable, and reflect the pressing need for change.
However, they cannot be achieved without leadership and cooperation from government, opposition parties and the private sector. A united ongoing commitment and strategic approach is needed.
The RRRCC will be leading a public campaign on these issues over the coming months.
Please register your details to stay in the loop on how you can support a better deal for the bush, and log it to leave us a message below on how this issue impacts you!
How do you feel about your phone/data services?
18 June 2018 -
18 June 2018 -
8 Responses
I have operated a business from a regional area for the best part of 10 years. For the first 7 years, there were no great detractions to my business from connectivity. Over the last 3 years, possibly since the introduction of NBN, I have noticed a dramatic reduction in both mobile and internet services. Despite being just 17km from Rockhampton, I have now had to go to Satellite Broadband and my mobile phone service had fallen to less than 1 bar from 3-4 previously, with no change in handset or device. My landline telephone service also experiences severe interferrance from aged lines/infrastructure that I've been told will not be upgraded. Despite a growing business that had the potential to employ diverse professionals in regional areas, I have had to move my business to Brisbane to obtain functionality. This is a very regrettable situation for Australia to be in. The failing connectivity in rural, regional and remote Australia will continue to increase pressure on populated centres that are already resource contrained (water, power, housing, transport). Governments must simply do more to promote the de-concentration of population in Australia and the opportunity to connect with the unlimited innovation and commerce that can be generated from our non-urban regions.
With the introduction of the NBN the ADSL connections have been slowed. Where I used to get 3 MBs I now only get 1 MBs. A recent expose of problems that power outages cause all phones to be rendered useless unless they have amobile phone. Recently South Australia saw the emergency 000 numbers and mobile phone unavailable during the blackout. Tower backup batteries cannot cope and exchanges with only battery powered backup failed. This is more likely to happen as these so called environmental improvements(?) send power generation into an unpardonable money sinkhole. Story > http://tinyurl.com/tragic-failures Link to Story http://tinyurl.com/no-wind-power Bill Gates himself said that in order to help with poverty and improve the quality of people’s lives, cheap electricity is a must. Why are they shutting down our power, installing NBN equipment that is already old hat as fibre is the complete answer? Both the NBN and Power generation are hand in hand dependent on each other. FIX IT properly and stop messing around the edges of reality.... The I'm all right jack attitude must be changed by Canberra as will be reflected by the next elections....
Has anyone else noticed over the last 12 months phone reception has gradually become worse in areas around the farm and on roads where you did have good reception...why is this? I would have thought increasing reception not decreasing. Others have noticed also
We have put a formal proposal to include the 'distance education satelite entitlement' for any Year 11/12 students without access to internet at home to be included. This is imperative for students that are studying, that live at home without internet. Our son is often given you tube examples, or contributions to learning 'and just check this out tonight' which of course he cannot. This is a continued divide for rural and regional students - that want to get somewhere in the world - and should have the choice to do so from living on a farm in regional Victoria!
As a farmer, and working for a national peak body - on Satelite NBN it is crazy to think the Government could be sold such a lemon! I would be very interested in more details of the private buy out. Experienced in cooperatively owned mechanisms, and this could be owned by the people/farmers, and the locals that want to support the farmers! Check out this group - who are doing a fantastic job at advocating and raising awareness of this key issue. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BIRRRSkyMuster
The biggest frustration is that Canberra based bureaucrats think that everyone has the same service they get and cannot understand why you cannot submit anything online! Nearly as stupid as being asked to go online to fix a problem when the problem is getting online! Rural people are being treated as second-class citizens and have been ever since one-vote one-value was introduced.
Hi. We are planning to build an Optical Fibre Network to connect all Australian Farmers.Fibre to the Farm(FTTF). Planning has progressed over the last 18mths and we met with Senator Nash yesterday to brief her. This will be a private network designed, built and operated for Farmers and Farming families.Farmers will be shareholders and it will be affordable. Speeds starting at 1Gbps (1,000Mbps) symmetrical (ie both ways) and unlimited download are key deliverables. This network will support Digital and Precision Agriculture as well as all Heath, Education and Social Media apps simultaneously. No shaping or congestion. The fibre will be ploughed to a depth of 1M and integrate with all on farm WIFI applications. The MD of this company has farms at Boorowa and collectively we have over 90 years experience in Australian telecommunications. Our pilot network is currently planned and we are looking for farming groups who may want to commit to this private network as a collective. I can send more detailed information on the technology and planned expansion for anyone interested if you provide me your details at our website. We have a placeholder website at www.smartfarmnet.com. My email is d.nash@smarftfarmnet.com
Access to a reliable mobile service is imperative for our beef business to move forward and be part of the future in farming