Residents fed up with poor internet

KATINA CURTIS

FOXGROUND residents are fed up with limited and expensive internet options and have decided to get vocal about the issue.

Cr Howard Jones has for at least two years led a community push to get adequate services in Foxground.

He has dial-up internet at a speed of roughly 28kbps, which he often finds inadequate for conducting his council business.

“The sort of broadband we’re dreaming of here is nowhere near the standards of broadband in Europe,” he said, adding he would be thrilled to get a speed of 48kbps.

Con Goik runs a home business and has been using an ISDN service with Telstra, but this is being shut down soon.

“They say they want to provide me with ‘world leading products and services’, but the choices are back to dial up or wireless broadband, which I would be happy to do – if it was priced at the same price as people in Gerringong are paying for ADSL,” Mr Goik said.

Charlotte Poole tried to get broadband installed so she could take up a distance education position, but found it prohibitively expensive.

“I find it incredibly frustrating that people in town can get broadband for $20 a month but we have to pay $60 a month for a worse service,” she said.

All three say the ideal solution is a tower on Saddleback Mountain transmitting wirelessly.

“Satellite is not a good option to us because there are latency problems, meaning there are interruptions when sending things, and they’re affected by storms and … tree cover,” Mr Goik said.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the entire east coast of Australia to be networked and to have equity between city and country.”

Cr Jones agreed, saying, “If we were out the back of beyond, then it could be that satellite is the only option, but we’re 12km from Gerringong, 2km from the Princes Highway and 2km from Saddleback Mountain, which is bristling with communications towers.”