Our Mission & Background

Our Mission

To lobby for, engage with and otherwise champion the cause of obtaining fast, reliable and affordable internet for Wamboin and surrounding districts.

Without action we will be burdened with a slow, and very expensive communications option (SkyMuster NBN satellite) when we are very close to the civilised world of Canberra and Queanbeyan.

The Wamboin Communications Action Group wishes to raise the awareness of the local community of their current fate, and help action a push for something better.

Background

It may come as a surprise to some, but we have been put onto NBN’s satellite service area, and since the satellite is now up there, we are now able to get connected to the NBN. This is where the fun stops. The NBN satellite offer may well be a good deal when you are the only home in the middle of an outback property the size of Denmark, but it certainly doesn’t come close to what we already have and what a community so close to the Canberra CBD would expect in today’s day and age.

Further, with the advent of the NBN offering connections to the satellite service, it is only a matter of time before the old Telstra exchanges will be shut down (NBN assures us that they won’t be forced to shut down, but what shareholder owned company keeps their antiquated/obsolete equipment running when there are only a handful of customers left connected on it?). This means the end of ADSL in our area is coming!

Further, the surprise that Wamboin is considered a satellite service area is put into perspective when it shows up as number 10 in the list of 11,517 satellite areas across the country[i] in terms of number of households, and 3 of these top 10 are Islands far from the mainland, and 2 Tasmanian locations have already successfully lobbied the Government for inclusion in fixed line NBN offerings[ii]. (For completeness, Sutton is #29 on this list and Bywong is #35.) There are 635 households in Wamboin, and a further 489 in Sutton and 462 in Bywong. In general that means our area is highly populated and on the border-line between getting a different NBN technology choice (but this won’t happen without community action, and not likely within the current NBN rollout!)

This means, that collectively, we will be burdened with a slow, and very expensive communications option (SkyMuster NBN satellite) when we are very close to the civilised world of Canberra and Queanbeyan.

Skymuster NBN services typically cost more than 2x the comparable ADSL or Fixed line NBN service, or up to 20x the cost when higher data requirements are factored in. Importantly downloads are capped at 60GB in peak periods, with NO ability to increase this at the present time.

What we have (ADSL) vs what we get under NBN Satellite (Sky Muster)

Table 1: Comparison between existing communications (ADSL) and NBN Satellite (Sky Muster)

We do not believe that NBN Satellite is fit-for-purpose. We believe it is a significant step backwards that only increases the digital divide between our area and the surrounding Canberra and Queanbeyan regions.

NBN Satellite in its current form (Sky Muster) meets none of our objectives. It is entirely not fit for purpose.

Sky Muster is NOT fast:

Sky Muster is NOT affordable and creates a digital divide:

Table 2: Expanded table of our existing ADSL, the new Sky muster and what the rest of Canberra and Queanbeyan receive

[i] https://www.finder.com.au/nbn-who-gets-the-most-sky-muster-satellite-coverage

[ii] https://delimiter.com.au/2016/06/14/coalition-dumps-satellite-fttn-nbn-tasmanias-west-coast/