A Dungog businessman has been left shaking his head as to why a tiny portion of Dungog’s central business district is not yet connected to the NBN.
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IT specialist Tim Norris said the businesses have been told they will have to wait more than three years longer for the NBN than their neighbours.
The digital divide excludes a pocket of the CBD, a block bounded by Brown Street stretching along Dowling Street.
“It’s a situation where Dillon and Sons on the corner of Dowling and Brown Streets has the NBN yet the council chambers on the opposite corner doesn’t,” he said.
“This block and the industrial estate are pegged for fixed wireless with a roll out date of 2020.”
Mr Norris remains unconvinced why a small section of businesses have missed out and is not convinced for the reason offered that the delay was due to a change in technologies.
“Why wasn’t it planned for us to be all on the same technology anyway?” he said.
Mr Norris said the situation meant that it would be quicker for him to go home to download something rather than try and do it from his office in Dowling Street.
“It’s madness,” he said.
“We have the two biggest employers in the area, the IGA and the council chambers, both battling it out over ADSL”.
Mr Norris said he has exhausted all possible avenues to get the answers he needs to understand why his address and others in the main street won’t receive the service this year. His Freedom of Information request to the NBNCo for information on how addresses and boundary lines were chosen was refused, and the NBN has since said they ‘don’t comment on individual addresses”.