Every three years the government reviews telecommunications in remote, rural and regional communities.
While the public consultation sessions have already passed in NSW, you can still place a submission until Thursday, September 30 (i.e. less than two weeks from now).
Meanwhile, those public forums were held virtually, due to coronavirus.
Given the poor level of telecommunications in many rural and regional areas (especially for those whose telecommunications problems need to be heard the most), one suspects the online submissions process may be the most practical at getting the message across when compared to a virtual hearing - even if you have to log on after midnight.
There's a lot of talk among the broader agricultural industry about how much more productive farmers need to be if they are going to feed the booming global population come 2050.
Never mind what the population does beyond that, because at this rate, it's going to be quite difficult to implement a lot of the technology that is supposedly going to help all this be achieved if we can't get service.
The ram and bull sales season this past two years has been a great example. Due to coronavirus and movement restrictions, just about every on-property sale is now also linked to an online bidding platform.
It is not unusual for a sale to start late or have to pause because the service dropped out and everybody has to wait until the online platform is reconnected.
One farmer made the point to The Land recently that they were about 50 kilometres from the nearest tower, and if somebody between them and the tower got online and started using lots of data, they could crash the service.
They just crossed their fingers and hoped that didn't happen during their auction.
Technology does exist to ramp up the effectiveness of that service. At roughly $1500-$1600 you can get a booster for your farm ute, or for around $2000 you can fit out your shed. But if everybody fits out their operation like that, again, the data stream all goes to the user closest to the main infrastructure and the system crashes.
So it is not just a courtesy to switch off your phones at an on-property sale, but a practicality, as well.
Remember, submissions to the review close September 30.
- Visit www.rtirc.gov.au/ to participate.
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