SINCE moving to Winter Street from Dalton Street last year Chris Fauchon and his family have been battling to get internet services that meet their needs.
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The family of five has no access to land-based broadband but houses on the other side of the road to them can access the ADSL broadband network.
Mr Fauchon said the wireless service they are using at the moment is slow, expensive and relies on the mobile phone system.
“We’ve been here 12 months and we’ve been trying to get ADSL here for that long, from what I understand the subdivision that we are in [Paterson Gardens Estate] on our side of the street was put in 2008, the other side is existing Orange,” he said.
“Anybody on this side of the street, everyone would be saying the same thing.
“They never put in the [infrastructure] on this side of the street, they [Telstra] are telling me the government won’t let them because of the NBN [National Broadband Network].”
The NBN scheme will be rolled out in town with a fibre-to-the-node system with construction expected to begin in Orange in mid-2016 and services to be online 12 months later, too long a wait for Mr Fauchon.
He said when they had ADSL at their last address, the family had a phone and internet bundle that cost $88 a month and gave them 200 gigabytes of broadband a month, which they used to use completely.
However, he, his wife Suzanne and sons aged 20, 18 and 16 now have to share 25 gigabytes of wireless internet a month that costs $160.
Although he said staff at the Telstra shop in town have been helpful the amount of gigabytes is not enough.
“It doesn’t help, my son [Nathan] who is doing his HSC is using about 25 gigabytes for his homework and leaving the family nothing,” he said.
“We can get access to another port or another exchange but we have to wait for someone to drop out and we are in line ... we signed to be put in the queue 12 months ago.”
Telstra area general manager Scott Curtin said the issue for the Fauchons was one of infrastructure and compatibility and suggested they continue using wireless services.
“Unfortunately the infrastructure in place that provides Mr Fauchon with his fixed line services is not ADSL compatible,” Mr Curtin said.
“We understand this can be frustrating, especially when other nearby properties can obtain the service, and we are happy to work with the customer regarding the wireless options that are available.”
tanya.marschke@
fairfaxmedia.com.au
