From looking at news articles, social media and forums on the internet it seems over time that the sentiment of a completed NBN rollout has shifted from excitement to a combination of frustration and worry. Although the NBN has great potential to advance Australia’s economy and general lifestyle, it seems people are loosing faith.
Why do people feel negative about the NBN?
One of the biggest concerns people have that has reached the media is that that their lift’s emergency phone may not work in a blackout. Lookup Strata has an informative article regarding Lift Emergencies and the NBN. In this article it states:
All lifts require an emergency phone to be legally “safe to operate”. Existing lift phones use the Telstra “copper” network, which has battery back up in the event of a power outage.
The article continues to say the NBN connections are at this stage not compatible with the current lift phone systems.
Also there are a lot of complaints from the public on the NBN’s Facebook page saying either that it is too slow, it is expensive, they had problems in the installation process or when they contacted the NBN’s call centre or they were unsatisfied with the answers they received.
How is the media responding to people’s sentiment?
Because of the bad publicity directed towards the NBN rollout, there have been ‘pro NBN’ articles published balancing people’s negative sentiment. One article on the internet published by LifeHacker.com attempts to debunk some of the popular myths being spread regarding the fears people have with the NBN. Some of the claimed myths listed in this article are:
- You will be forced to use the NBN
- NBN plans are overpriced compared to ADSL
- Consumers hate the NBN because they may not be able to make emergency phone calls
Good news for business
Also in April 2016, Yahoo’s Finance News published an article on the NBN offering retail providers discounts to encourage service providers to buy more bandwidth but the article says that this won’t apply to satellite services.
What does fast internet mean for Australia?
An article on RealEstate.com.au illustrates how access to the internet affects residential prices. In the article it says:
Fast, reliable and affordable broadband internet has the potential to fuel economic growth of all kinds – not just property prices. It can also drive improvements to local communities and economies, businesses and bring new opportunities, which is why the Government saw fit to invest in the NBN to start with.
The NBN’s rollout plan will not be completed for some time. If you are curious about when your building will be connected nbnco.com.au has acomprehensive map allowing you to search by address and find out when your house will be connected.