Paul Fletcher MP speaks to ABC Eyre Peninsula And West Coast Mornings about Mobile Black Spots

Host: Now we’ve heard reports for some time about telecommunications problems throughout Blinman and also Elliston and Paul Fletcher MP, the Parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Communications is visiting Elliston today to talk with local residents, he joins me now. Good morning.

Paul: Good Morning Sarah.

Host: What are the communication problems that have been identified so far?

Paul: Well, as you said I’m here in Elliston with my parliamentary colleague Rowan Ramsey, Member for Grey who’s been a very strong advocate for the communication needs of communities in his electorate including Elliston and the issue that people have been talking to me about here in Elliston this morning is the restrictions on the availability of broadband so we’ve met with the school principal, we’ve been to visit the hospital and the clinic and heard about how slow broadband for example makes it hard to access patient records.

We’ve heard about the impact on kids doing their lessons particularly for example specialised subjects at the school where the content is provided over the internet remotely but of course you need the required internet speeds for that to work and I’ve also been talking to people here about the national broadband network particularly what’s called the long term satellites service so these are the two satellites that are presently being built by NBN Co. due for launch the first of them due to launch towards the end of next year for the expectations of services on the long term satellite service first quarter of 2016  so that will be 25 megabytes per second speeds down, peak speed down and 5 megabytes per second peak speed up those are speeds that compare very favourably to what most people in the city are getting on DSL and once the long term satellite service is in place that is going to mean a very much changed in the broadband availability for people in smaller and remote communities like Elliston.

Host: MP Paul Fletcher, you’ve mentioned that you’ve met with schools and hospitals about some of their limitations around have good internet access. Is there a worry to when we have a day like this with catastrophic fire warnings that people, you know, can access the right information?

Paul: Clearly communications is a very important part of emergency response and it’s so important that people are able to for example call the emergency services or call other services providers and just be in contact with friends and family so communications is critically important one of the other programs that I’m talking about, I’m here in Elliston and later in the day, I’m heading with Rowan Ramsay Member for Grey up to Blinman and we’re gonna be talking there about remote mobile communications. The Abbot government has a program to spend 100 million dollars on improved mobile communications in regional and remote Australia. That’s a competitive selection process under which a whole range of locations around Australia have been nominated by community members, very shortly we will commence the competitive selection process and the mobile operators, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone will be coming forward to indicate which of those locations they propose to build a new mobile base station at and the amount of subsidy they would require from this 100 million dollars to do so and then the government would choose which locations from those ultimately may get funded. We believe that, we estimate that 250-300 new mobile base stations will be funded under this program around Australia and Rowan Ramsay, Member for Grey has been a very strong advocate for communities in his electorate being amongst those which get funded under the program and so certainly at Glindmon* that will be a topic for discussion. Here in Elliston there is good Telstra mobile coverage in the town but certainly the six broadband issues are not to the community’s liking and that’s certainly been a subject of discussion, a very useful discussion to me this morning and Rowan Ramsay, the Member for Grey has been very keen to get me as Parliamentary Secretary to the Federal Minister for Communications, Malcom Turnbull, has been very keen to get me to come and visit these parts of his electorate so that he can help me explain and I can take back to Canberra a better understanding of the unique communications needs of remote communities such as Elliston.

Host: Paul Fletcher, you mentioned the NBN and the plans that they have for late next year. Is there anything that can be done in the interim?

Paul: Well, in relation to the period before the long term satellite service is in operation one of the focusses for the Abbot government has been improving what’s called the interim satellite service. Now, that’s something that’s operational today it’s designed to deliver 6 megabytes per second down, 1 megabyte per second up unfortunately under the previous government while there was a claim that it could serve 250 000 premises around Australia there was only enough capacity purchased to serve 48 000 and there some other problems as well that we’re working to see if we can improve so we allocated some money to purchase some increased capacity and we’re working to see if we can get the interim satellite service working better so that over that period of time before the long term satellite service commences for those who are on the interim satellite service we have to be able to get some operational improvement in the experience people are getting.

Host: We’re speaking to MP Paul Fletcher who’s the Parliamentary secretary for the Minister for Communications and is today visiting Elliston and Glindmond* to talk about particularly internet communication issues in those regions. Is there an opportunity still, for people to talk to you in Blinman today?

Paul: Look I’m sure anybody who’s in Blinman would be more than welcome to come and have a chat. We’re going to be at the Blinman hotel from about 1:30 so anyone that wants to drop by I’d be very pleased to meet you and improve my education about remote communications issues. Look, it really is so important that as we are making decisions in Canberra about the National Broadband network and other aspects of communications nationwide there’s just no substitute for coming to remote areas of the country that have some particular and distinctive communication’s needs and getting a chance to talk to the people about the issues they’re facing in getting in getting on the Internet and of course when you live rural and remote areas, then the Internet becomes so important in the way you access services that people in the city take for granted. Things like distance education and obviously things like banking and other commerce and business applications and also education, you know it’s so important for education and I hear people all around the country say to me quite rightly we want to make sure that we have a decent internet service because the kids are given homework to do on the Internet they need to have that connectivity so that their educational experience can be as good as a child anywhere in Australia and so for all these reasons being connected wherever you are is important. The national broadband network is a key part of that and this 100 million dollar program which I’ve spoken about for the Abbot government to stimulate the provision of improved mobile services in regional and remote Australia and I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to be in Elliston and Glindmon* to talk to locals about their own experiences in communications.

Host: And Paul Fletcher, obviously these are issues we talk about quite often, might there be other areas of South Australia you will look at too?

Paul: Look, certainly I do intend to be visiting other parts of South Australia. I’ll be in Kangaroo Island with Jamie Briggs in 2 or 3 weeks, Member for Mayo. I was in Renmark some 2 or 3 months ago and so what communications Minister Malcom Turnbull has asked me to do is to get around to as many parts of the country I can and make sure that the Abbot government understands and is hearing from people living in areas of regional remote Australia. Of course the Liberal national coalition has always had a much larger number of parliamentarians coming from regional and remote Australia than the other side of politics and so regional and remote communications has always been a priority for us and the communications Minister Malcom Turnbull has charged me as his parliamentary secretary to make sure I can to as many parts of the country as possible so that I can hear directly from people on what their communications situation is and the things we need to do to work on it.

Host: Paul Fletcher is joining us from Elliston this morning. He’ll make his way to Blinman. Thank you for your time today.

Paul: Thanks very much Sarah.

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