We've moved down here to try to expand into Canberra. It means a lot of travel to look after our Sydney clients, but that's bearable. However, the lack of broadband isn't! It's almost like two different worlds. In Sydney - both at our server facility and our Sydney office - we have high speed ADSL connections of quite reasonable quality. In Amaroo, just 15 kilometres from Parliament House it is impossible to get an ADSL connection.

Oh, and it's not Telstra's fault apparently. Or so it would seem from this recent letter.

Letter to Gungahlin Residents (PDF Format. Get the Adobe Acrobat Reader!)  

Please bear in mind that it's not so much what's said, but what's not said. The following paragraph in particular is screaming to be inserted.

"Due to lack of forward planning on Telstra's behalf, it is not currently possible to offer high-speed broadband services in the Gungahlin area. Our Mini-MUX trial, which could be used to provide a form of broadband, will not be rolled out to the majority of residents. As a result, while we attempt to rectify this, we can only offer you an inferior service for approximately the same price as you would otherwise pay for a much higher speed connection. We apologise for the inconvenience."

Since a resident's meeting in May, I've been in contact with David Gunsberg (Area General Manager), Neil Watt (Customer Service Manager), and Kate Lundy's staff (Senator for ACT, Shadow Minister for Arts, Sport, and Information Technology) in an attempt to resolve this issue. As of today, it's not fully resolved.

I have, after over a month of negotiation since this letter was issued, finally agreed to go with the Bigpond ISDN solution, which provides a 128kb ISDN connection with no additional data charges. As of yet I have still to be connected.

So 6 months after moving down here, I still have to dial up via a 56kb modem which, thanks to the same technology that prevents me from connecting ADSL, will only deliver a 31.2kbps connection. It essentially means that I'm pretty much forced to go to Sydney to remotely support my Sydney clients - oh, the irony.

Sigh.. what's that? Yes, Telstra. I'll wait until 2004. You want me to bend over? Okay, I guess...