atw: National Broadband Network issue

  • From: "Rhonda Bracey" <rhonda.bracey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <WAustechwriters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 06:24:41 +0800

Hi all

I've never been one discuss politics (or even been interested too much
in the 'issues' surrounding an election). And I have no intention of
starting a discussion about politics here. 

However, for many of you who work from home (whether in the city or
not), or who would like to work from home, the National Broadband
Network issue is one that affects you directly.

I blogged about my stance on this critical issue to my ability to work
here:
http://cybertext.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/letter-to-local-member-of-parl
iament-re-the-nbn/ (or http://bit.ly/aewMZq)

The NBN is something I feel very passionate about, and even more so
since having an email discussion yesterday with Helen, a member of
another list I'm on. Helen has moved from Pemberton, WA to a property
about an hour south of Perth. She cannot even get phone, let alone
internet on her new property. As her internet access is severely
limited, I'll quote from an email she wrote to me today when she was
back in Pemberton:

"We are fed up with them, whoever 'they' are. We have had to have
satellite internet here because we are 100m from a hub/rim, in spite of
campaigning to get internet here, which everyone else does have now,
except us. The phone line (180m) was laid and connected on Friday only
for them to 'discover' there is a fault on the town side of the line.
The fault is, just like your cake, there was one 'pair gain' whatever
left for us to have and it has a fault. You can't tell me they didn't
know that, and that is why it was left. So no phone and no internet."

And this is an hour out of a major capital city, not woop-woop. 

Some 50+ years ago an Australian government had the vision to lay copper
lines throughout the country to provide us with an (almost) universal
telephone service. Now a government wants to do a similarly large
infrastructure project, this time with materials that should last a
further 50+ years, but the opposition wants to keep us in the dark ages
of a failing copper wire network (and boy, have I had experience of it
failing!), or build thousands more mobile phone towers to provide us
with a slow satellite service.

I'll shut up now.

Rhonda

Rhonda Bracey 
rhonda.bracey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.cybertext.com.au
CyberText Newsletter/blog: http://cybertext.wordpress.com
Author-it Certified Consultant
**************************************************
To view the austechwriter archives, go to 
www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter

To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 
"unsubscribe" in the Subject field (without quotes).

To manage your subscription (e.g., set and unset DIGEST and VACATION modes) go 
to www.freelists.org/list/austechwriter

To contact the list administrator, send a message to 
austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
**************************************************

Other related posts:

  • » atw: National Broadband Network issue - Rhonda Bracey