THE message about poor internet options and woeful data allowances in the bush is finally registering on the government’s radar.
During Christmas, the Australian government announced the distance education port, which will give families 50 gigabytes of additional data for each student for up to three students per family.
A spokesperson from the Federal Communication Department said the government had heard the concerns from those living in rural and regional areas in relation to internet speeds, data allowances and reliability.
And bush families have welcomed the news.
Isolated Children’s Parents Association (ICPA) federal president Wendy Hick, Thorntonia Station, Camoowe, Queensland, said her organisation was invited to sit on the Distance Education Broadband working group committee.
The ICPA provided feedback to National Broadband Network executives and the Australian government.
Mrs Hick said the distance education port was a huge boost for distance education.
“We’re seeing the results of the conversations we’re having (with government),” Mrs Hick said.
A spokesperson for the department said the ICPA was invited to the working group to ensure they had the “consumer perspective” when designing the satellite and roll-out arrangements.
Data restrictions have negated the benefits of internet in the bush.
Currently, for satellite internet, the highest data allowance is 50GB and Mrs Hick said most servers operate on an peak and off-peak regime.
Rural and remote families have lacked options for affordable, adequate internet for education and daily life, she said.
Mrs Hick said rural people, especially isolated families, have to rely on just one internet server for work, schooling and general lifestyle jobs such as paying the bills.
“It becomes extremely problematic for these families with restricted data limits and slow internet speeds from congestion,” she said.
Peak hours operate during the day and clash with school hours, meaning distance education families are exceeding their data allowances in no time at all.
“Families are doing their banking in the middle of the night to preserve their data,” Mrs Hick said.
Mrs Hick said with the previous internet system, families were discouraged from distance education.
“We’ve heard of some distance education schools turning students away that don’t have adequate internet services,” she said.
The NBN is forecast to be completed by 2020 although, it’s expected to be “usable” by the second quarter of 2016. The department said rural users would gain access to internet speeds faster than current metropolitan ADSL connections.
