From: P. Rasmussen [entegral@australia-house.com.au]
Sent: Monday, 8 July 2002 1:28 PM
To: ecita.sen@aph.gov.au
Subject: RE: Broadband Services - Hawkesbury LGA, NSW
The Chairman,
 
Your ToRs state in part:
 
"(a) ...........
 
(b) the capacity of the Australian telecommunications network, including the public switched telephone network, to provide all Australians with reasonable, comparable and equitable access to broadband services;"
 
This capacity is clearly NOT available where I live.  Let me explain.
 
I live at Yarramundi, a small rural settlement on the Hawkesbury-Nepean river (near the foothills of the Blue Mountains and on the entry of the Grose River Wilderness and the World Heritage Nominated area of the Greater Blue Mountains - 85% enclosed in the LGA of the Hawkesbury) and not far from either Richmond (NSW) or Penrith.
 
Thus, although we are some 54 Kms from Sydney we are definitely NOT remote or unreachable without massive investments in network, cabling or exchange equipment.
 
I have tried unsuccessfully now for 3 years to obtain broadband services to my area from Telstra only to be told that the exchange at Castlereagh, my exchange,
is not ADSL capable, but will be upgraded sometime in the future.  However, when I ask for some sort of evidence that this might be the case they simply give the same 'mantra' as they do not have a forward work plan at all for the up-grade of the exchange? 
 
I take this to mean that they have NO commitment to any up-grade, any time soon (next 5-10 years in their forward estimates/budgets).  They have also admitted that  the provision of these 'hi-tech' (their use of this phrase??) services would also have difficulty as the 'pair' system to my area has very limited quality and could NOT support ADSL services??  Clearly they see no commercial benefit for the investment in the up-grade in line quality and exchange for only 60,000 people?
 
A satellite system may soon become available from Optus, but has horrendous costs for very limited increase in speed - and NO promises from them either!!!.
 
I have also enquired from AAPT re wireless services (WISP technology) and although they were initially interested in looking at it for the Windsor area some months ago, they have recently informed me that their 'infrastructure people' have said no to any new roll-outs.  AAPT have a WISP broadband service operating in Bendigo I am told.
 
I am currently seeking help from a US regional  WISP service provider who seem keen to provide some assistance based on their US WISP technology.
 
We, at Hawkesbury community radio would be willing to set-up a community WISP just to help our Hawkesbury home, business and farming communities get access to broadband technology and we have the capabilities to do that.  I am the Chairman of the local community radio station - Hawkesbury Radio - 89.9 FM - and we have a great university close handy - UWS Hawkesbury (Richmond) campus which has access to the Internet backbone - so many of the 'building blocks' are available to a self-help community WISP to fill the 'gap' which the majors are clearly not willing to provide for our regional and rural area.
 
One solution which the Government could/should consider would be to provide some start-up seed funding for community WISPs to get many of the regional and rural communities connected to the Internet with broadband services so vital to rural business success and survival.  Given the extensive community radio network across many of our rural and regional communities it would be entirely feasible to 'leverage' community WISPs of these community radio knowledge and technology platforms.
 
This would also have added advantages in that it would give 'community' rates and charges as most community radio operates on volunteer labour - no profits and all monies are returned to the development and running of the community services.  Moreover, the technical skill and technical equipment is generally already in place (eg transmitter towers etc) and would take relatively every little up-grading.
 
Community radio would also gain a source of extra revenue to maintain its overall viability and would become even more relevant to its local community.
 
This is a win-win solution for all and deepens the penetration of broadband services to many remote, rural and regional communities.
 
We also know for a fact that should BB services become available in our LGA then many more people would consider working from home and start home-based SMEs.
 
This would be a great 'revolution' for our area as it would provide work for semi-(retired) rejected qualified workers, house-bound wives/women with small children and many young people with recently acquired multi-media computer skills but no jobs.  Many are capable of providing games software development to bigger firms if they could deliver via the internet.
 
Our community is suffering badly economically as our access for such common services as e-commerce, B2B, B2C etc to affordable broadband services is non-existent.
 
However, there is a community solution to a need which the commercial players are NOT willing to provide at present.
 
So, I would indeed be grateful if your committee could consider this submission and make a recommendation to link community radio centres of excellence to community WISPs where such a synergy is a strategic sensible option for the provision of broadband Internet services to remote, rural and regional 'broadband challenged' communities and settlements.
 
Should you need any more information re this please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kindest regards,

Councillor Paul Rasmussen
Chairman, Hawkesbury Radio - 89.9 FM
BEST IN THE WEST - YOUR KIND OF SOUND

Phone:  02) 4776 1611
Fax:    02) 4776 2209
Mob:    0412 366 633
Postal Address:
POB  285, Richmond, NSW  2753

http://www.hawkradio.org.au

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