Mystery Bay area residents continue to look for viable alternatives for a fixed wireless tower after NBN Co announced it had abandoned plans for a tower at the township.
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NBN Co at a recent township meeting at Mystery Bay confirmed to residents that the fixed wireless tower that had been proposed for Mystery Bay Road would not work because of “terrain” and residents would instead be served by the satellite broadband service.
But residents such as Richard Nipperess have continued to look for alternative sites including at Brushgrove Lane, where NBN Co is planning to build the fixed wireless tower to service Central Tilba.
Mr Nipperess and Brushgrove Lane resident John Ramsay are proposing a different location for Brushgrove Lane, closer to the Princes Highway on a parcel of land belonging to Road and Maritime Services.
They say this location does not require the clearing of more than 25 trees and may actually service Central Tilba and Mystery Bay.
The other location further down Brushgrove Lane where NBN Co says it wants to build the tower is now being legally contested by the resident living adjacent.
NBN Co however said the RMS site was not viable, nor were five other sites looked at. It was also unable to confirm whether there was legal action against its designated Brushgrove Lane site.
“As previously discussed we have thoroughly investigated six different sites to provide a service to Mystery Bay,” an NBN spokeswoman said.
“This has included the RMS site that you asked about, which has been deemed not suitable as it would not be technically viable. The sites were either unable to provide a service to the township or we were unable to gain approval from the landowner.
“If the community wish to nominate potential, suitable locations that have not been previously evaluated nbn would be happy to investigate.”
Mr Ramsay meanwhile has a diagram that seems to directly contradict information supplied by NBN Co in that it shows the proposed Mystery Bay tower connecting directly to the existing towers at Wallaga Lake and also south Narooma. Central Tilba was merely an offshoot of this “daisy chain".
Previously NBN Co has said the proposed fixed wireless tower at Mystery Bay would tie directly into the Tilba tower. But when the initial site at the old Tilba abattoir was abandoned because of neighbours’ opposition, the new location of Brushgrove Lane was selected.
NBN Co at the recent Mystery Bay meeting said the Mystery Bay tower would not work because it was not line of sight to Bushgrove.
But the diagram supplied by Mr Ramsay seems to dispel all of this because it appears it was supposed to tie directly into Wallaga Lake, regardless of where the Tilba tower was.
In other telecommunication news for the Mystery Bay township, Telstra has confirmed it has upgraded the existing ADSL service and was still looking at adding more ports.
“There is a planned upgrade to the cabinet that services the Mystery Bay area with additional ADSL 1 ports to become available,” Telstra area manager Chris Taylor said.
“Information regarding this is available on the Telstra Wholesale website. Telstra has also completed a congestion relief project to provide a more reliable user experience for customers in the area.”