Doctors leave rural Australia over broadband
Doctors leave rural Australia over broadband
Doctors are leaving rural Australia because of lack of adequate communication services that prevent them from doing their jobs adequately, according to a broadband company that is hoping to change this.
The Multimedia NewSat satellite broadband division is waiting on approval by the Federal Government rural initiative, Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme (HiBIS), before it can roll out its latest broadband technology to residential rural Australia.
Its new Remote Subscriber Satellite Link (RSSL) uses dominant satellite hardware company Viasat's newly developed surfbeam technology to provide faster and more efficient ADSL services.
James Kellett, the general manager of strategic operations for the Multiemedia NewSat division believes that everybody in the rural areas has a basic right to broadband access. "So many people in remote locations do not have access to important ADSL services which are so important for improving better health care and education provisions. Rural doctors are deciding to leave the country because they do not have access to proper services in these areas.
"Australia is a little bit behind Europe and North America in terms of our availability of broadband for rural communities, but we are on about the same level as Canada. The new technology, which we shall receive in a few months, will provide these communities with much faster services for Internet and email access that will make their life a lot more easier. We just hope that we can get approval by HiBIS without any problems so that we can provide affordable broadband to these communities."
The Australian Government is working with Internet service providers (ISPs) to bring higher bandwidth broadband services to regional Australia, in line with city prices, through HiBIS (the Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme).
Under HiBIS, ISPs can apply to be a 'HiBIS provider'. This means they will receive an incentive payment from the Government to provide users, if eligible, with higher speed broadband access in line with city prices.
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