NBN creating digital divide on New South Wales Central Coast
Updated
NBN customer David Sneddon sometimes has to go to extreme lengths to get an internet connection at his home on the New South Wales Central Coast.
"The NBN went down for six days last week, so we get a dongle, we put it in a ziplock bag, we clip it to a rope that is slung over a tree, and then we just pull it up the tree," Mr Sneddon told 7.30.
"We can get away with minimal internet use when the NBN is not working."
Mr Sneddon lives in one of the nation's first NBN rollout areas, less than 40 kilometres from the centre of Sydney, and says it is not speed, but reliability, that plagues his connection.
"It's been a fraught experience in terms of both dealing with the service provider, being Telstra, not being able to talk to the NBN, who are the wholesaler, connection issues, timing, missed appointments, the list goes on and on."
John Simon, NBN Co's chief customer officer, told 7.30: "The NBN network does not go down for six days. We do monitor, we know where there are faults and we respond to them."
Mr Sneddon called Telstra about his outage, who investigated and found there was no problem with their service.
"We referred the matter to NBN Co for investigation and NBN Co dispatched a technician and services were restored," Telstra said in a statement.
On Tuesday the NBN admitted Mr Sneddon was without service for six days, telling 7.30 in a statement: "He now gets an internet service which is far superior to most people in Australia."
'We've sold people a lemon'
Mr Sneddon's experience of drop outs, faults and service complaints are some of the problems users are experiencing on the Central Coast, and which could extend nationally as the Coalition's fibre to the node (FTTN) plan continues to roll out.
The NBN has led to a digital divide on the Central Coast, with some people finding it improves their internet connection and others finding it diminishes theirs, a factor which undermines the Government's Universal Service Obligation contract with the telcos.
The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) received 664 complaints about the NBN from this area last year, making it one of the most complained about NBN rollout zones.
NSW Senator Deborah O'Neill said the way the way people in regional Australia have been treated is "contemptuous".
"Instead of giving the people on the Central Coast the real NBN, we've seen people sold a lemon," Ms O'Neill said.
The NBN Co told 7.30 that by the end of June, there were 48,000 premises connected in the area.
"If you do the maths, 600 versus 48,000, it's actually quite a small number [of complaints] but I'm the first to agree that one issue is one too many," NBN Co's Mr Simon said.
Topics: internet-technology, pretty-beach-2257
First posted
