UPGRADES to the National Broadband Network have left some Limestone Coast residents with intermittent or no internet access during October.
Tarpeena, Worrolong and a host of communities south of Mount Gambier have been impacted by works, with further interruptions expected over the coming days.
nbn local South Australia and Northern Territory head Tim Haul said nbn had committed to spending $800m nationally to increase the capacity of its fixed wireless network.
“nbn is currently spending so it can support the growing broadband needs of communities into the future and is prioritising South Australia’s South East,” Mr Haul said.
“This upgrade program will improve the speed and reliability of the network in the South East and is in response to a doubling of the amount of data South Australians use per month, since 2015.
“nbn notifies all of its retail service providers at least 10 working days before planned outage windows and expects retailers will in turn pass this information on to end users to allow them to plan for outages.”
Mr Haul said nbn had completed extensive works upgrading its towers in Moorak East, Allendale East, Port MacDonnell, Kongorong, Nene Valley, Yahl, Worrolong, Tarpeena and Port MacDonnell West during October.
“We have endeavoured to keep outages to a minimum during this time, while ensuring the safety of our workers, who work at heights,” he said.
“We apologise for the inconvenience these outages cause and ask anyone who has concerns to contact their retail service provider.”
Port MacDonnell resident Ken Weaver, who claims to have been impacted by the works since October 9, said he had experienced intermittent access, including a period of days with no connection without any prior notification.
“I have contacted my service provider and they said it was NBN’s problem and the company was doing maintenance in the area,” Mr Weaver said.
“It is starting to cost me money and I believe around 2000 people have been affected,” he said, adding people would be “jumping up and down” if access was restricted in Norwood or Glenelg.
“There are a lot of people in the Bay who rely on modern day technology and we are not living in 1930,” he said.
“I cannot receive or make phone calls, do any work from home, internet banking or even send or receive emails.”
Mr Haul said there was a planned outage window expected between October 26 to 29, during business hours each day.
“nbn stresses time periods are outage windows only and the affected towers will not be offline for the duration of these time frames,” he said.
“We will endeavour to keep these outages to a minimum while ensuring the safety of our workers.”
Affected towers include Moorak East, Allendale East, Port MacDonnell, Kongorong, Nene Valley, Yahl, Worrolong, Tarpeena and Port MacDonnell West.
