Friday, March 29, 2024

Make the connection

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Rural connectivity is one of those things that comes up in the media every now and again but is something farmers live and struggle with every day. The announcement earlier this year that 5G broadband will be rolled out in 2020 is great news for those who can get it – those in urban centres – but rural communities are ignored and are being left behind. Way behind.
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As a rural household we have struggled for years to get decent service. Initially, we had satellite internet which was okay but still reasonably slow and expensive.

At that stage, there was no such thing as broadband in our area.  

It is not as if we live in the wop wops. We are about 15 minutes from a big town and just off a state highway. 

When Spark offered us broadband we jumped at it but in hindsight we were no better off, in fact probably worse off.

Our speed was 0.6-1.5 megabits a second (mbs). 

Receiving emails or trying to open internet pages was slow but trying to upload or send emails was excruciatingly slow.

If one person was watching a video or surfing the net the rest of the household was affected and nothing worked through the WiFi.

Then, about a year ago, we changed to another provider and we now get 5mbs and all five of us can be on the net without too much disruption.

But this is still miles off what urban folk can receive .

Friends in Wellington can get up to 100mbs, which highlights that we rural folk really are the poor relations of the internet world.

On top of this I know of farmers who can’t even make or receive cellphone calls let alone upload their farm data to the various apps or programmes being developed.

In this ever-increasingly digital world the inability to connect is not acceptable and instead of spending millions of dollars on rolling out or giving our urban cousins better and faster connectivity it is time businesses and the Government invested in our rural communities.

And let’s be honest, the economy relies on the primary sector. It is the backbone of our country.

Sonita Chandar
Editor
Dairy Farmer

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