This week AgForce joined with 16 other organisations from across Australia who converged on Canberra’s Parliament House with one simple message: 2017 must be the year of bringing reliable and affordable telecommunications to regional Australia.
The Regional, Rural and Remote Communications Coalition met with about 50 Federal politicians over two days to champion five key reforms including:
- A universal service obligation that is technology neutral and provides access to both voice and data;
- Customer service guarantees and reliability measures to underpin the provision of voice and data services to deliver more accountability from providers and nbn;
- Long term public funding for open access mobile network expansion in rural and regional Australia;
- Fair and equitable access to Sky Muster satellite for those with a genuine need for the service, and access which reflects the residential, educational and business needs of rural and regional Australia; and
- Funding to build digital literacy and provide problem solving support for regional, rural and remote businesses and consumers.
The fact so many different organisations representing agriculture, education, women and telecommunications users are coming together sends a powerful message about just how critical this issue is.
No matter where you live, you should have access to affordable, reliable internet and voice services.
The delegation highlighted to Parliamentarians that regional, rural and remote consumers struggle to run their businesses, educate their children and complete day to day online tasks due to unreliable telecommunications services.
It was also pointed out that there are enormous opportunities for regional Australia if communication services are improved to a standard commensurate with that enjoyed by urban dwellers.
That’s why AgForce is calling on all levels of government and all sides of politics to collaborate with the telecommunications industry to extend and improve services as quickly as possible.
Without leadership and without change, Australia risks growing and entrenching the digital divide between urban and rural telecommunications users.
We all need to work together – politicians, industry and the community – to ensure that 2017 is the year we fix telecommunications in the bush.
To follow the discussion on social media, use the hashtags #DataDrought and #betterbushcomms
