NBN Appeal update report
David Abrahams
February 25, 2014
Open Letter
I am writing to you as a signatory to
the constructive CC NBN Rollout Appeal and to anyone interested in the $440 million infrastructure investment. There were in all 260
individuals, businesses & organisations that supported the appeal
and 110 of you made detailed comments and suggestions.
The appeal was addressed to the
Minister for Communications Hon Malcolm Turnbull, copies were sent to
assistant Minister Paul Fletcher MP, MPs Lucy Wicks, Karen McNamara,
Jill Hall, Senators Sinadinous, O'Neill & the Senate Committee
investigating the NBN.
I would like to thank the signatories for their support of such a constructive regional appeal. Your collective
support has undoubtably set the spotlight on investment on the
Central Coast, it may very well be the catalyst to defending the hard
fought infrastructure investment schedule. More importantly
thank you for supporting a positive infrastructure development that
will help decide the future of our region. A region so often forgotten in the nation's eye.
Local News
With the announcements on Friday of a
Fibre to the Node trial in Woy Woy/Umina it appears that our appeal
has been largely ignored. Yet I still believe that our rationale is
solid and that the coming trials of the downgraded technology will
indicate the technical and financial flaws in the alternative.
- Interestingly the Peninsula Chamber has welcomed the solution, apparently happy for their business members to have only a fraction of speed and reliability of their Gosford based cousins.
- Gosford Council passed a motion to support the continued NBN rollout in late December.
- The Central Coast Business Review featured an article about the appeal in their February edition.
- The Peninsula News & the Gosford Community News have both had prominent articles in Feb.
- The ABC radio 92.5 has also had several discussions that featured our appeal.
International News
- It appears that our efforts have sparked some attention in that the Central Coast was featured in a prominent international telecommunications newsletter by the renowned international telco expert Paul Budde. http://www.buddeblog.com.au/frompaulsdesk/nbn-frustration-on-the-nsw-central-coast/
National News
- The Senate select committee investigating the NBN rollout has also picked up our appeal and have indicated their interest in travelling to the Central Coast in the near future to probe deeper into the issues. They may indeed contact some of you and request your views on specific situations. (Your contact details were not published publicly). Should this eventuate I trust people can come along to witness and/or comment. I know that Senator O'Neill has been key in pushing this to help illuminate the situation in this region.
Some articulate submissions
I'd like to share a few of the
submissions. There were so many articulate and heartfelt responses,
I've just taken a representative few to illustrate the broad views.
I've abbreviated names for the sake of privacy.
---
D
Being a firm of accountants, we are performing more and more work with the aide of the internet. We process a substantial amount of account keeping and processing for both internal and client purposes and the current broadband service struggles to keep up with the requirements of our firm and as such, brings reductions in productivity and efficiency.
PP
I do not see this as just an opportunity for myself; it is also an indicator of how the NBN will change the business opportunities throughout Australia.
John
As someone who moved up here from Sydney a few years ago to raise my young child in this gorgeous environment while also using my ambition and international experience to support local business and continue to work with international clients, it is difficult to fathom how anyone with a vested interest in regional business growth and opportunity could even contemplate disrupting the NBN rollout.
Ashley
I am a TAFE teacher. We have been continually told that our funding will be reduced, Campuses and courses cut. We are required to deliver more and more in the workplace. Our online training material are often very resource hungry and our students often have difficulty utilising online training due to poor connections and slow download/upload load speeds
Stephen
The NBN represents, for a remote island economy as Australia is; one last final opportunity to not only recover its failing economy, but to be THE leading economic country in the entire OECD, bar none.
Cathrine
As a company located on the Central Coast and growing it is very frustrating at the costs and more importantly the lack of high speed internet. We now have clients accessing our servers on connections many times higher than we can provide. Our whole business is suffering as a result as we try to serve as much data as we can.
Peter
We are a Voluntary Surf Lifesaving Club & we desperately need fast internet communication.At the moment we can't even get ADSL.
xSLSC
My suburb is ready [Kariong] has been readied and the residents and local businesses want the roll out to be completed as originally planned FTTP
Tom
I am concerned that the opposition to FTTP is based mainly on the fact that it was proposed by the previous government. Infrastructure projects of this magnitude should not be part of political skirmishes. If there are inefficiencies in the roll-out, address those, but do not deny residents and businesses the opportunity to be part of the 21st century because of ideology.
Kate
It is recognised worldwide that towns and cities with very fast fibre-optic internet services are seeing their economies grow substantially. The Central Coast economy is in serious decline with low GDP, declining business employment high unemployment, declining business numbers. We are now seeing rising numbers of commuters with the latest figures being around 40,000.
Edgar
Recent studies from Europe have shown FTTP to increase GDP, and reduce costs in delivering public services. Most such studies dismiss FTTN as not being a viable alternative. The longer Australia debates whether or not FTTP is even needed, the further we fall behind.
Patrick
20 previously unemployed young employees may lose there employment.
Ian
I am concerned that the changes to the planned NBN rollout of FTTN will greatly disadvantage people living in retirement villages.
Elizabeth
Its a ridiculous situation here on the Coast now with some properties connected to the NBN and others not. Places like Terrigal and North Avoca are no longer on the list to be connected to the NBN when they were prior to the election. Parts of the Coast will be privileged to get the fibre to the premises, those who missed out are going to get a substandard service. They just need to get on and finish the job. Lots of people on the Coast work from home and need this.
Michelle
Using a location such as the Central Coast would be an effective method of running a test-case of how the NBN could change for the better the nature of work and enable the education, leisure and health industries to deliver effective and user-focused services.
Marie
These are just some of the dozens of submissions that we received in those brief weeks. As you can see that this is truly a broad community based appeal.
I have presented this to several politicians including Ms Wicks MP and Senator O'Neill , unfortunately I've not been given an opportunity with Ms McNamara MP as yet, though she has received a copy of the appeal.
Minister Turnbull has as yet not replied.
Your Sincerely
David Abrahams
@digitdave
Local small business person
CC Broadband Alliance appeal coordinator.
PS. Several of you offered to assist. I like to think it is the roll of elected officials and the government agencies to prosecute the case for our regional telecommunications investments. Should these officials and agencies not wish to act, there may well be a case to put a coordination group together. It does appear that some of them are not up to speed yet, we should give people a good chance first.
