Broadband Blues

Taken from the Campbells Bay Times October 2009
Thirteen years after the launch of Xtra, all Campbells Bay Residents can finally get broadband. While Telecom has made large profits over the last few years, we have had to suffer either complete non-availability or very slow and unreliable broadband. The lines from the Browns Bay exchange were installed around 1940, using old stock which was insulated not with plastic but with paper and tar. As many residents know, when it rained there would often be a complete loss of broadband and sometimes telephone services as well, due to water entering the cables. Sadly, the new ADSL2+ technology that Telecom has installed is not performing. ADSL2+ should deliver 24 Mbps and Telecom promised 7 Mbps. This writer is only getting around 5 Mbps. The reason, according to one Telecom installer, is that the rest of the network is still highly deficient. To make matters worse, we are paying far more than world prices for this inferior service. The only bit of comfort is that dial up access runs, at the most, at 0.5 Mbps. At least we all can have broadband now and it is around ten times faster than dial up.

David Haysom (Residents & Ratepayers Association committee member)