The WCAG team request help from residents to encourage John Barilaro and the NSW Government to fast track the provision of the $5M grant that was announced in January 2019. To this end we would like you to contact John Barilaro's office and ask what is happening with the provision of the grant that was promised in January. Here is a link to a pdf containing contact details and possible questions you could ask. WBSR help request (pdf), WBSR help request (doc).
The WCAG team
Dear fellow resident
If we are to succeed in changing our default NBN service from the Sky Muster Satellite service to something better, it’s critical that we convince politicians of how important we think a decent Broadband service is for us. To do so we need as many residents of Wamboin, Bywong and Sutton to write to them and make our concerns known. It’s important that these letters put forward a personal perspective and compelling case.
However, the Action Group understands that many residents may not have a detailed understanding of the implications of having a satellite based broadband service and might value a draft letter to help position and frame the issues.
To help make this easier, we have prepared draft letters for various politicians/ministers (see below files). Feel free to use these in whatever way you think best suits your situation. The more personal you make these the better. You might, for instance want to add some text about specific consequences of this decision that affects you or your family, their education or even your business needs. For example:
If you have several school age children in the household it is very likely that the limited data allowance available through Sky Muster will be insufficient to support their education needs. As children in our area don’t meet the relevant remote classification applied by NBN there is no way to get additional capacity. Of course, as noted in the draft letters, kids (and some adults) also enjoy online gaming. The data allowance and poor latency characteristics of a satellite-based service effectively make many online games unplayable.
If you work from home on a permanent basis or run a business – agricultural or otherwise, Sky Muster is very unlikely to meet your needs with only 2 to 3 GBs of data on average available each work day for the top plans. And if you run out of data half way through the month you may find yourself without much of a business!
If you have aged parents or relatives living with you, it may be that they are dependent on the Internet for health needs, social engagement or mental stimulation via gaming and entertainment services.
If any of these issues are relevant to you it would be valuable to add these to you letter(s) as well as to target the appropriate Minister, such as:
Senator the Hon Simon Birmingham, Minister for Education and Training;
Hon Michael McCormack, MP, Minister for Small Business; or
Hon Ken Wyatt AM, MP, Minister for Aged Care
Finally, we would really appreciate receiving copies of any responses that you get to your letters – along with a copy of your letter to them if you substantially changed it. This effort may well take more than one letter and we already know that some politicians have responded politely to resident’s complaints but have dismissed or ignored some of the critical weaknesses in the satellite service. If you are happy to provide us with a copy of any response, please send a scanned copy to wamboincommunications@gmail.com. We will use these to prepare new draft response letters for you, and others, to use to maintain the pressure.
Thanks you for your assistance in helping our community become a more digitally connected place for all of us and our children.
The WCAG Team