The shape of bush disconnection…

When you choose to live beyond the city limits, you know there is a price to be absorbed for that choice.

We moved (back) to the bush almost nine years ago now… and we did so with open eyes.

We knew when we moved that we would be travelling 100km round trip to the nearest shop (where we would pay more for our groceries and goods thanks to freight costs to retailers).

We knew we would pay more for fuel itself – the commodity on which pretty much all bush livelihoods and existence depend.

We knew our children would have to travel further to school – and perhaps attend boarding school as they reached high school age.

We soon realised we would have to put up with more regular power outages as old infrastructure wobbled and needed maintenance.

We began to understand that landline telephone services would be at the mercy of Mother Nature, the whimsy of Telstra’s ‘priority system’ and the time contraints on one very overworked technician covering a ludicrous sized territory trying to keep us connected.

We ‘suck it up’ as our gravel roads disintegrate while our amalgamated councils struggle to get their manpower and equipment to all the roads in our new ‘supersized shires’ which need their attention.

We wait our turn (often completely isolated) during extreme weather events – knowing we need to use and stretch our own resources as much as possible as essential services are restored to the households and businesses most desperate, and where technicians and emergency services are physically able to attend.

We deal with remote and random mobile phone service that most urban areas take completely for granted – so much so that most businesses just CANNOT get their heads around the fact that leaving as message on our mobile might not actually be retrievable until a ‘town trip’ occurs and we are back in service range.

I understood that my treatment for cancer would NOT be available at my local hospital – that I would need to travel at least three hours (and up to six) to get my chemotherapy and other specialist attention.

We absorb a fair bit – and you don’t hear much about any of it publicly.  Because we love doing what we do, living where we live, producing what we produce – even if we have to absorb these difficulties in order to do it.

So, for the most part, we do all that with little fanfare – not until it REALLY bites.

Well, we got bitten a couple of weeks ago.  Well and truly and (in my opinion) very unfairly.

It has to do with bush broadband.  I should use inverted commas around the ‘broadband’… because it’s a pretty loose term in these parts.

To explain for those who live elsewhere: we have satelite dish connection to the internet here (pictured above, on our roof alongside our television satelite dish).  Locations are only eligible to get satelite connection if they CANNOT get mobile phone service.  We definitely do NOT get mobile phone service and we can only dream about ADSL fixed line service (which my Mother has in her near-town home).

We have been with the same service provider since we could first access satelite ‘broadband’, ditching  our ‘dial up’ connection nine years ago.  For the most part, they have been excellent service providers – answering service calls (with helpful, Australian-based staff) and explaining upcoming problems with customers.  Sure the service was a fair bit slower than in town, but hey, it’s the bush – we are used to ‘sucking it up’.

About 18 months ago, we signed up for the NBN – National Broadband Network – which we assumed (because that’s what the marketing material said) would bring us the kind of fast connection our urban counterparts enjoyed.  What we didn’t really realise (at the time) was that, as a new dish was installed and our old one taken away, we were actually being connected to an ‘interim satelite’.  A with no-where NEAR enough capacity to serve all potential customers. As more and more people were signed up to this interim service, the loads got heavier, and our service slower and more erratic.  We had, however, reasonable limits available (at a cost) and fair warning from the provider if we were going near our limits, before we got ‘shaped’. (Shaping is where your provider slows down your internet speed to limit your usage (download).  A more extended explanation here.)

Now there are all kinds of horror stories out there about shocking internet connections – many far worse than mine.

I can only testify to our situation however, which has tested my (usually reasonable) patience to the limit.

I would estimate that it takes me AT LEAST five times as long on my connection than it would on my mothers ADSL service, to do my ‘internet activities’ (maintaining our own websites including this one, paying bills, accessing business information and activities such as cattle registrations and transfers, sending image files for printing and doing our business marketing, on top of my social media activities) .  Time-outs are regular events if you try to do them at ‘peak’ usage times, with the ‘spinning wheel’ of a struggling connection a regular sight on my screen. Cloudy weather – while enjoyed for it’s potential rain-giving promises – often cuts our service off.

Some of my specialists (I am recovering from breast cancer) offered Skype services (to save me travelling 1000km round trips to see them) – we attempted to use that wonderful program, to communicate, but the timeouts proved impossible so gave up.  Again I trekked the 55 km to my parent’s house to take advantage of this service.  Still, we accepted that this is ‘normal bush broadband’.

And we (like every other bush broadband user) took a deep breath and. sucked. it. up.

A couple of months ago, our provider warned of new (smaller) limits they were being asked by the NBN to enforce on customers – we went from a 60GB (anytime, for $60/month) plan to a 25GB (on peak, between 7am and midnight, with another 25GB available ‘off peak’ during my much-needed sleeping hours)!

This new limit hit as we went into our biggest marketing event – Beef Australia 2015 – and as we re-branded our business.

Hideous timing.

It also hit in the month we had school holidays – when visitors used to city internet unwittingly helping to send us into ‘shaping’ territory.

My blood pressure rose, but I tried not to dwell on the frustration as I took my biggest files (for banners, posters, and video clips) on a stick into town to upload there. I stopped counting the trips (and hundreds of kilometres) I had to drive to meet all my deadlines, as we endured our limited home/business service which allowed only the most basic transactions and the occasional access to social media.

Last month – with numerous automatic updates on apps and programs such as Acrobat, Windows, internet browsers and my husband (a movie lover who I believe deserves a well-earned bit of escapism every now and then) tried to download a movie – we sailed once again over our 25GB limit.  We were shaped again… and we sucked it up.

For  seven whole days, after the new month ticked over, we had ‘normal bush broadband’ – still slow and unable to support many more than one or two devices working at a time online.  But endurable. Then we went away for five days – during which, despite our empty household and turned off computers, our downloads kept adding up.

On arriving home we discovered – to our consternation – that we had been shaped AGAIN.  And not just shaped, but pretty much STOPPED. Only the most BASIC website would load (certainly no banks, social media or my own business or blog site) and only emails without photos could be sent.  We were shocked at the severity of it – especially when we felt we had already ‘done our penance’ for usage (that would not considered terribly high in urban terms).

Urgent phone calls to our service provider met with a ‘yes we can see you are shaped, but it’s not us that have shaped you‘ response.

Um, pardon?

It was suggested we ring the ‘wholesaler’ of our service, NBN, to find answers.  I did, to a strange stilted phone conversation with a ‘support’ person who denied strenuously any role by her employer in my shaping.  She did however point out that a new ‘4 week rolling period’ for download limits had been brought in.  She explained that basically ANY 28 days could now be used to measure a customers usage (rather than taking it from the 1st of the month to the end – where you could dole out your own usage according to your own/business’s needs). This was news to me.

So, I asked, what was the limit that NBN required then.

‘50GB’ she replied. That’s total on and off-peak. Hmmm…

I tried to access usage over the previous four weeks, but was able only to see this month’s usage via my providers website.

I found a link which measured our internet speeds… the results were shocking:

As you can see, this was over several days, at different times of day.  Unrelentingly awful.

I made a throwaway comment to my friend, Landline presenter Pip Courtney at an event ten days ago, apologising for not being in touch much because we were ‘shaped again’. I was gobsmacked when she questioned what ‘shaping’ was – she had never heard of it!  It seems while those on ‘lower end’ internet plans in town might occasionally get their service curtailed – although most have the option to pay more for additional data (an option not available to us) – most don’t go NEAR their (ever INCREASING) limits. On asking around other rural women gathered at the event, she was horrified that pretty much all of us dealt with ‘shaping’ to some degree in our lives.

I mulled this over, and rang our service provider, and asked for our usage records for the previous six weeks from our provider (via email).  How could we have possibly have gone through that limit, when we were ALREADY shaped for a good ten days at the 25GB mark?  It seemed impossible – but we had indeed managed somehow, even though we had deliberately limited our use, to break the new 50GB ‘rule’ (which we had not been previously informed about)!

I took our son back to boarding school – staying over in town for a night so I could use the wireless internet there to access to attend to emails, upload this post and answer a hundred questions from media connections about my situation.  (The speed nearly gave me whiplash!) I ended up on ABC radio talking about my experience (you can hear it here).

For some reason, while I was away for this 24 hours, our connection got SO bad we couldn’t even send ANY email (even text only).

Once again I headed into town (because with cancer treatments and boarding school commitments, I don’t do enough travelling ALREADY) to pay bills and do our banking on my laptop.

That patience I generally pride myself on?

Gone. I had hit the ‘enough is enough’ line.

I am lucky enough to have know some great people (who have connections) and they shared my concerns and contact details with someone a little higher up the chain at NBN.  Magically, just before that gentleman called me – our internet returned:

Top result – while shaped. Bottom result – after shaping removed. 30 times faster!

I believe NBN speeds are estimated 1250-1500 KB/s (see bottom of the test page for estimates) – or 138 times faster than shaped speed and almost 5 times faster than our ‘normal’ best speed.

My NBN man rang me and very politely took down notes as I outlined our situation – including the fact I had been using a ‘speed measure’ site and screenshot-ing the results throughout my ‘NBN shaping’ (I called it that, even though NBN and my service provider had NOT admitted that they are behind the action*).

I told him that is VERY difficult to do business via a communication tool that comes and goes. Randomly. Without warning and with no notification of time of return of service. He promised to chase up the things he thought most vital.*

I responded that I sincerely hoped that broader answers would be found to the issue – because CLEARLY I wasn’t the only person experiencing terrible internet, nor was alone in being unfairly shaped without warning.

The thing about the internet is that is provides an AMAZING communication tool which helps over-ride many of the ‘drawbacks’ of living in rural areas… for the past decade, we have been able to use it to reach out, with our businesses, socially and as communities.    And we are not the only ones who now consider decent internet service a fundamental tool – the United Nations has found that  broadband access is regarded as a ‘basic human right‘.

While I am happy that I am now unshaped and once again have access to (much better) service than I have had for months, I am concerned that others are still experiencing terrible connection and shaping.  I wondered how many cannot communicate at all at the moment because they are shaped beyond use.  I wonder if I might at any moment again be harshly shaped without warning.

I belong to an online group called Better Internet For Rural, Regional And Remote Australia so I hopped on there to see if I was alone in my issues. It’s fair to say I am not.  So many are putting up with MUCH worse – and the stories make your hair curl (and your eyes leak).  Families who are trying to homeschool their children (due to remote locations) being forced to send them away to boarding school after CONSTANTLY being shaped by their providers, and being unable to share essential curriculum with their kids.

Having to send your kids away early to boarding school because your internet isn’t good enough to keep them home? Heartbreaking…

But home-school classrooms aren’t the only customers at risk – online businesses have been forced to close.  People are cutting themselves off from important support networks to ‘save data’ and there are those at the end of the month who are unable to send invoices or pay their bills.

I cannot bear to think of those, already fragile through drought and geographically isolated, being suddenly and without warning cut off (as we were).  While some may still hang onto the belief that social media is not essential, businesses are run through Facebook pages, and an enormous amount of moral support – often leading to other kinds of real-life support- is provided through tools like Facebook and Twitter.  I hate to think of consequences in those kind of scenarios.

The NBN and government have assured customers that the super-duper ACTUAL NBN satelite – which will be accessible to us in around 12 months time – will FIX ALL OUR CONNECTION PROBLEMS.

Let me repeat that, in a slightly different way… we have already waited 18 months for a service sold to us as ‘The Answer’. And there is ONLY 12 more months to go before it’s a reality.  Basically, we have been told to ‘suck it up’ for another year.

I have also heard NBN reps claiming that a few ‘high users’ have made it hard for everyone else – hmmmmm. I wonder how high the usage is for those ‘high users’ being blamed?  Would anyone blink an EYE at the same level of usage in an urban environment? Not at all! We are actively being encouraged to blame each other for our data problems.  (An interesting tactic.)

I need to point out that we are considered ‘high end users’ – our previous 60GB plan considered excessive by NBN and the government.  Sure I am busy on social media – with blogging, business, blog and community Facebook pages and the occasional flurry on Twitter (not that often). We don’t Skype, we don’t game or live stream anything, we rarely watch You Tube and I have turned all ‘auto play’ functions off our devices.

I discovered last night that NBN themselves have published a report that say the ‘average’ Australian internet user uses 58GB/month.  The average NBN user, 67 GB/month.  Hmmmmm.  What is ‘too high’ for us, is ‘average’ for the rest of Australia. (Again I point out, that our connection services our business as well as our personal needs – the majority of urban situations have those two demands separate.)

I have been thinking about this as I join others online (using the hashtag #FixBushBroadband ) in calling for actual solutions NOW.  I have come up with a metaphor which I think illustrates what is really happening… and why the current ‘solution’ is not working.

I liken the situation to trying to drive a car on a couple of flat tyres.  (The NBN is the driver, the internet providers are the mobile tyre centre assistants – called out by driver to physcially deal with the problem, the air in the tyres is data usage, the rubber on the tyres is the customers (us) and the tyre centre manager – in possession of out the only spare tyres around – is the government.)

The NBN are trying, with bush broadband, to deal with their flat tyres by sharing the air from the remaining tyres around.  All the tyres are now semi-flat and the air is still escaping from the damaged tyres (as more and more data is required by customers to do their jobs, run their businesses and live their lives).  The tyre-centre assistant  is frantically trying to share that air around, under pressure from the driver who is still pretending that all will be well, as long as the car can make it to the tyre depot 100km away, and those spare tyres.  The tyres on the car however?  The ones taking ALL the pressure imposed by situations completely beyond their control? Well, while the TOP sections of the tyres are possibly feeling a little less pressure than they were, the DOWN section is feeling more and more pain – regardless of how that air is moved around as the car rolls slowly forward.  The problem has simply shifted, not been fixed.  And the tyres are destined, inevitably, to blow as they simply cannot take the pressure anymore.

The pressure needs to be eased as a matter of urgency.  The holder of those spare tyres needs to get up from behind the counter and come to meet the situation on the road… it’s that simple.  I am not an expert at telecommunications.  (Frankly I have plenty of other jobs I need to be doing besides trying to find solutions to this one). I realise dollars will have to be found to (perhaps) extend mobile services and wireless broadband, to shift some of the load across to the mobile network and relieve the satelite congestion.  And mobile service infrastructure will need to be upgraded to meet that new data demand.  Maybe there is another way to alleviate the pressure without penalising the bush customers?

Whatever it is, it needs to be done.  Not in 12 months. Not in 6 months. NOW.

The disconnection of rural Australia needs to stop.  

If you have a story to tell, and/or want to help effect some change, please join BIRRR** on Facebook and Twitter.  Don’t forget to use the hashtag #FixBushBroadband!

PS If you are on Twitter there was a VERY interesting announcement from Telstra today at the ICPA conference in Brisbane.  Paul Fletcher made this speech which shared some startling facts, including that only NINE gigabytes per customer per month was allocated on the interim satelite service.

*I have had a reply from my nice NBN man. It includes confirmation that I WAS directly shaped by NBN (after a fortnight of denials).

**Apparently my nice NBN man reads the BIRRR facebook page every day.  Here’s hoping he is inspired by the stories there to get busy on making changes that count!