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The digital gap between regional and metro is closing mainly because the government is pushing Tel$tra to improve services in the bush so that they can sell it. I live in a reasonable new estate (approx 5 yo) in Logan City in QLD and I can not get ADSL because Tel$tra cabled the estate with PAIR GAIN Technology - something I thought the Senate put a stop to. I applied to an ISP to have ADSL installed, and after 11 weeks cancelled the order because the ISP was having so much difficulty getting Tel$tra to fix their mistakes.
If you are serious about fixing the problem - how about splitting Tel$tra into 2 - wholesale and retail ???
As usual, or as to be expected, vaugeness into where the so-called "one billion dollars" is going in investment in the Bush telecommunications is no suprise. What is again, no suprise, is the National's lack of comment on the issue. I think I can safely say, as backed up by the response by the other two respondeds, at present that the toothless-tiger Nationals are silent and they are silent as they don't believe a word of Coonan's claims about 'investment'.
With an annual budget pulling supluses of potentally $14 bil, $1bil is chickens feed in...how many years was that, Senator Coonan?
Regional communications could arguibly include the governments' pushes against the ABC to regionalise it, something that has been met with stiff competition.
Most of this highly short article is focued on what EVERYONE ELSE is doing, Senator Coonan. How about Australia hears what Coonan and the Federal Government is doing?
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Recently Iwrote to my local member, Warren Snowden MHR - here's a copy:
I write to request that you bring to the attention of the Minister for Communications, Senator Coonan, the continuing poor Internet & Television access suffered by residents of southern Alice Springs.
I live some 5 kilometres south of town, in a block of 90 units known as the Gap estate on the corner of Bloomfield St (formerly Bloomfield Road) and Bradshaw Drive, immediately below the Mt Gillen mountain range.
Dial-up Internet access is becoming increasing more difficult, with myself and other local users experiencing numerous regular line dropouts, often as little as 5 minutes after logging-on and as many as 4 or 5 dropouts per 2 hours - especially since November 2004. My Internet supplier is AOL-Primus, but they say they can't do anything because it's a local line matter for Telstra. Telstra say: Speak to your Internet service provider ie. AOL.. We're just the consumers in the middle. I've previously emailed The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman & Telstra Countrywide about this, but they haven't done anything.
Despite the Larapinta exchange upgrade, it seems residents in southern Alice Springs who are more than 4 kms from the exchange, still won't be able to get ADSL access.
Our options are therefore Satellite or the proposed new privately-operated wireless broadband service being launched soon by www.curl.com.au using the new light towers at Traeger Park - but this will cost $600 - $700 per household & I've been told we are not elegible for the mush-touted HiBis subsidy.
It seems Telstra has forgotten Alice Springs residents who live in the new southern & eastern suburbs - no boradband and not even reliable dial-up internet.
Television:
At our address, even with an outdoor "master" antenna in our block of units, we can't get Channel 7 at all (the picture's black and white, snowy and hardly viweable) and only a very poor, snowy SBS picture - even though we live right below the Mt Gillen transmitters !! So really, we only receive the VHS transmissions - ABC & Imparja - as UHF dosn't work at all in our part of town. What is the govt doing about our TV Blackspot ? People in remote communities get all 4 channels - why can't all Alice Springs residents get similar access ?