A petition to fix poor internet services and black spots at Beveridge, Whittlesea and Wallan is filling fast.
Almost 400 people have signed the Better connected Yan Yean petition, which calls for improved access to adequate and reliable internet services and activating notorious mobile black spots.
Better Beveridge Group secretary Ian Rankin said the community group started the petition last year to encourage the government and Telstra to upgrade existing facilities.
Beveridge grazier and group president Greg Heffernan hopes to lodge the petition in state and federal Parliaments within the next few weeks.
He said most people had to install a satellite or use wifi, “which is expensive and very slow”.
Another Beveridge resident, who declined to give her name, has written to Telstra chief executive David Thodey airing her frustrations at having to make do without broadband.
She and her partner moved into their home about a year ago only to learn there were no ADSL ports left in the area. She’s been unable to run her online business ever since and is forced to use the local library’s internet service to hunt for jobs.
“The new residents of Mandalay have all the services they need yet the people who have lived here their whole lives get nothing,” she said.
Whittlesea council has been lobbying the federal government and Telstra to bring high-speed broadband to the community for some years.
Brad Winter, the council’s organisation improvement manager, said it was unlikely Telstra would upgrade communications infrastructure in areas such as Doreen and Mernda because the NBN would come along within the next 10 years.
“Under the act they only have to provide a telephone service,” he said. “That’s the problem at the moment.”
The council applied to the federal government’s Mobile Black Spot Program but was knocked back because it didn’t meet the prerequisite of being in a “regional” area.
A Telstra spokesman said the availability of ADSL ports would change over time with demand and upgrades to the network.
“In the past year, we have completed three exchange-based port upgrades as well as six upgrades to parts of our streetside cabinet network. We have plans in place to improve the port availability in parts of Mernda, scheduled for completion in June 2015,” the spokesman said.
