Unhappy with the NBN, these residents are taking matters into their own hands

THE NBN was supposed to bridge the digital divide among Australians, but the residents of this town say it’s made it worse.

DISSATISFIED and fed up with their new NBN connection, residents in a small town in regional Canberra are taking matters into their own hands.

A group of residents in Wamboin, on the NSW side of the northern border with the ACT, say they’re planning to dig their own trenches to lay internet cables and secure faster home broadband services.

They are currently being serviced by NBN’s Sky Muster satellite but say the connection can be unreliable and drop out during rain or winds.

Speaking to the ABC, local Jon Gough lamented the speeds they get on satellite, despite Wamboin being just 20km (as the crow flies) from Parliament House.

“It tends to drop out when there’s light rain or heavy rain and strong winds,” he said.

“The speeds max out at 25 Mbps, and that’s the maximum you can get to. The reality is it’s more like between 15 and 20 Mbps, when it’s working.”

Other residents said they have been left frustrated by the data caps imposed on satellite services, which are also the most expensive plans provided on the NBN. Many are forced to pay for a $200-per-month plan only delivering about 120GB of data.

Disgruntled residents have formed the Wamboin Communications Action Group with the express purpose to “lobby for, engage with and otherwise champion the cause of obtaining fast, reliable and affordable internet for Wamboin and surrounding districts,” according to its community web page.

The group says it is in discussions with SmartFarmNet to lay fibre optic cable around the area, giving locals who choose to take part a chance to finally get quality internet.

“Without action we will be burdened with a slow and very expensive communications option — Sky Muster NBN satellite — when we are very close to the civilised world of Canberra and Queanbeyan,” the group says.

Unhappy with the NBN, residents in Wamboin, Sutton and Bywong have a new plan.

For Mr Gough, it’s about giving rural residents a fair go and fixing the digital divide between cities and regional areas — something he thought the NBN would do.

“We believed NBN was going to provision services to most of the population at a reasonable rate and breach a digital divide,” he told the ABC.

“What’s actually happening is the digital divide is widening because of the services.”

It’s not the first time residents on NBN’s Sky Muster service have complained about high costs and data restrictions compared to their metropolitan counterparts.

Andre Toulon lives in the rural Western Australian town of Manjimup and was connected to the NBN via satellite in 2016. While he was happy with the speeds compared to his previous connection, he told news.com.au that the amount of data he was able to get was completely insufficient.

At the time he started a petition, criticising the “draconian limitations on the bandwidth” and calling for an end to the digital discrimination of rural Australians.

However since Mr Toulon was connected, NBN Co launched its second satellite which came online in May 2017, boosting the performance of the service and providing more data for satellite customers.

NBN Co said the launch would provide additional support and capacity for roughly 400,000 homes and businesses in regional and remote Australia.

But it’s still not enough for many living in the bush.

The Sky Muster satellite being prepared for launch.

The Wamboin group reportedly have the support of about 60 per cent of the community for its plan to lay its own fibre cable. They need 80 per cent backing of the local residents in order to finance the plan.

It’s expected to cost about $4 million and would connect 4000 homes at a cost of $1000 per premise, according to the ABC report.

But if the plan comes to fruition, residents would have access to unlimited data for about $80 per month.

In response to the story, an NBN spokesperson told news.com.au that when taking into account the geographical location, existing infrastructure, cost and time to build, the Sky Muster satellite service was determined as the best technology to connect residents in the Wamboin area.

“NBN was mandated by the Federal Government to provide a minimum wholesale download speed of 25 megabits per second to every premise in Australia as soon as possible by utilising a multi-technology model,” the spokesperson said.

“This model is enabling us to deliver access to high speed broadband to Australians much faster and more cost effectively than ever before.”