Clearly Betsy Fysh should be referring her complaint to the Telecommunications Ombudsman rather than On Line Opinion. The complaint should link the subsidised satellite and ADSL issues so that it's clear that the expectation is that Telstra either provide one or the other.

On the wider issue, I've never been clear why people living out in the bush (which to a greater or lesser extent here means outside the major urban areas), should expect to receive all the communication services at the same level of performance and cost as those in urban areas. It costs more to provide those services in the bush.

I have not noticed bush dwellers banging on my door demanding to be allowed to pay as much as I do for accomodation, tolerate the congested roads that I do, or suffer the constant noise that a crowded community invevitably creates.

There are all sorts of trade offs involved in choosing where to live. There is no good reason to identity one particular kind of technology, and consider that equity requires that access to that technology be equalised across Australia.

If bush dwellers envy the lives of urban residents so much, then they can come and join us.

Sylvia Else.

Well said, Sylvia. We have freedom of movement in Australia, and freedom of choice as to where to live. Nowhere is perfect, all have pros and cons, no one who chooses to live in an area where access to goods and services is limited for geographical reasons should expect to be supported as of right by either government or commercial suppliers.

An interesting article Betty but sadly typical.

Originally part of the PMG Department, Telstra was then a purely Commonwealth Public Service organisation.
Whitlam then split it into three commissions – OTC, Australia Post and Telecom. Although it was still then a Public Service operation it’s “commission” was to provide a basic telephone service to about 98% of the population at equitable cost. That meant that almost everybody had the right to access and the cost of provision was nationally cross-subsidised.
It was later corporatised into Telstra and, no longer part of the Public Service, it became self-funding and paid dividends to the treasury.

The (so-called) competitive environment that came later, plus partial privatisation meant that the company has to run as a hard-nosed business.

Back in the PMG/Telecom era you were called a “subscriber” and second only to the Minister for Communications in importance.
Now as a “customer”, the shareholder is far more important than you and unless you generate a significant amount of revenue for the company you won’t even rate.

If it costs Telstra $1,000,000 to provide you with a service they need to get $1,000,001 back, otherwise they simply won’t do it.
Expecting a private company to provide equitable service at any cost is like telling McDonalds that they must have a store in every town.

Eventually Telstra may need to shed all non-profit rural customers and you will be supported by subsidies from the taxpayer.

As a citizen and taxpayer I strongly feel that the core network asset should have stayed in public hands but as a shareholder I don’t want to keep wasting (my) money on unprofitable areas.

We now have a situation where the communications in Parliament House is owned and run by the Singapore Government. Eventually Telstra will also get its orders from an overseas Head Office and what we have taken for granted for so long will be gone forever.

Enjoy it while you can because in the bush, it may be as good as its ever going to get.

I sympathize with you Betsy; poor internet access can be very frustrating. I would hate to swap my cable modem for dial-up on a noisy line and I agree that better access should be a priority but is Telstra the real culprit.

I would assign my primary blame to government regulation and the ACCC. Telstra is required to sell services in the bush for the same price as in the city. If Telstra had a complete monopoly this would be no problem but resellers and wholesale caps in the city keeps the margins low and the bush is simply not profitable.

Remove the regulation and the ACCC and people in the bush will be able to have whatever service they are willing to pay for. A similar argument applies for the city; Telstra cancelled its fibre roll-out when the government decided that it would have to provide subsidized access to its competitors.

Telstra certainly has its faults but it has demonstrated repeatedly that it is willing to invest in infrastructure only to become stymied by government regulation.

Not much sympathy for the bush here. Probably because there are a large number of regional citizens who are unable to access this site at a reasonable speed to put forth their side of the argument...

Plenty of Australians don't have the option of just upping and moving to the cities.

I'm not advocating communism, but there was a day when we weren't communists, yet we still expected our government to provide core services - schools, hospitals, police, roads - and telephone access - to all of Australia's citizens.
If the argument is that the role of the state is to look after the majority, then fine. Let's start categorizing.

The majority of Australians travel by car. Instead of having public transport, let's offer subsidies to buy cars, and we can slowly phase those out too.
Granted, it will inconvenience many, but hey, it'll save tax dollars that we can use as subsidies to wean people off other services.

Let's start by weaning people off the public health system. Let's face it, it's inefficient, it doesn't work like the private health system. We can use the transport money to introduce more people to private health insurance, and gradually phase that out. It's not hard - just look how we'll we've managed to cripple medicare.

Let's continue by selling off more assets - their role is clearly to make a profit, not service unprofitable elements of the community. This is Australia! everything must be profitable! The taxpayers may own these assets through the government, but if we sell it to them we can get a cash injection and boost our economic credentials.

Ug. Okay, I'm probably going a little over the top here. But it kind of irritates me when city dwellers who are used to broadband and rarely step foot into real regional Australia like to pretend that everybody should just move to the cities at the drop of a hat... of course, the same people rail against congestion and the dire issues associated with supply and infrastructure in the cities which is caused by unrestrained growth, but hey.

TurnRightThenLeft

You're misrepresenting the "city dweller" position. The position is not that the people in the bush should move to the cities. The position is merely a recogniition that certain things, such as communications technology, cost more to provide in the bush, and bush dwellers should not expect to get a subsidy for them, any more that city dwellers get a subsidy for accomodation.

People always want to have their cake and eat it, but life doesn't work like that.

Sylvia.