Bellbrae phone and internet worries aired again

TELECOMMUNICATIONS in Bellbrae might be patchy but interest in the issue is still strong, with Shadow Communications Minister Michelle Rowland meeting concerned residents on Monday.

At the meeting, held at Bellbrae Harvest and also attended by Labor’s Corangamite candidate Libby Coker, nearly a dozen people expressed their frustrations with landline and mobile phone services in the area, and repeated their request for a repeater tower to extend the National Broadband Network (NBN) fixed wireless coverage into Bellbrae West.

Bellbrae residents have had to use unreliable ADSL or expensive mobile broadband connections for years, and also have to deal with congestion on a nearby mobile phone tower during peak times.

As part of the NBN rollout, NBN Co constructed a fixed wireless tower near Anglesea Road but this has particularly displeased those in Bellbrae West, who lobbied hard for better internet but will more than likely have to use satellite, the slowest of NBN’s mix of technologies.

Deb and Ken Stevenson, who recently purchased Bellbrae Harvest, said their anxiety levels went up significantly when hosting events in the middle of summer.

“People have decided not to have weddings here because we don’t have reliable mobile or internet,” Mrs Stevenson said.

“The Surf Coast Shire wanted to run a workshop here today (Monday), but ended up deciding that they couldn’t, because we didn’t have the internet for them.”

Phil Pilgrim said there had been a decline in parity in telecommunication services.

“Here we are, 30 kilometres from Victoria’s second largest city, and if you wanted to use the CFA app, you wouldn’t be able to.

“We’ve had it stuffed down our throats that we made a choice, we chose the lifestyle to be hicks living 30 kilometres from the city.”

Ms Coker said more than 70 per cent of people in Corangamite were connecting to the NBN through copper, not fibre.

“That’s going to have real implications for our region in terms of connectivity, lack of reliability; it’s impacting on people’s jobs and livelihoods.”

Ms Rowlands said Labor was considering reforms to the Universal Service Obligation to include broadband internet.

Ms Rowlands and Ms Coker also discussed the NBN at a public meeting held earlier in Belmont.