Tuesday, 27 March 2018 11:55

Internet woes

Written by 
 Federated Farmers vice-president Andrew Hoggard. Federated Farmers vice-president Andrew Hoggard.

Communications and Digital Media Minister Clare Curran was scheduled to meet with Federated Farmers last week to discuss the rollout of rural broadband.

This follows Federated Farmers vice-president Andrew Hoggard saying that dealing with woeful rural-broadband coverage should not be delayed while the Government pursues the roll-out of 5G cellphone technology.

Spark and Vodafone have been reported as saying they are trialling 5G -- the next generation of digital communications. 

“Meanwhile plenty of towns and the provincial hinterland are without broadband, and with patchy or non-existent mobile coverage,” Hoggard says.

However Curran told Dairy News she expects to say more about rural broadband and 5G projects over the coming months.

“Absolutely everyone should share in the benefits of new technology and we need to be improving rural access and pushing for the best technology available, and we are doing exactly that,” she says. 

“The Government is prioritising rural communities as it recognises their contribution to our nation.”

She was to meet with the Feds last Thursday.

“The Rural Broadband Initiative 2 (RBI2) work is progressing in parallel with the 5G work; it’s not either-or and I want the pace of that work to increase as much as is possible. 

Hoggard says when there is poor or no access to ultra-fast broadband and mobile, farming businesses and family life suffer. 

More like this

Editorial: Sensible move

OPINION: The Government's decision to rule out changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that would cost every farmer thousands of dollars annually, is sensible.

Dairy unity

OPINION: A last-minute compromise ensured that the election of the new Federated Farmers national dairy chair wasn't a repeat of the Super 15 rugby final - Canterbury versus Waikato.

Featured

Big return on a small investment

Managing director of Woolover Ltd, David Brown, has put a lot of effort into verifying what seems intuitive, that keeping newborn stock's core temperature stable pays dividends by helping them realise their full genetic potential.

Editorial: Sensible move

OPINION: The Government's decision to rule out changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that would cost every farmer thousands of dollars annually, is sensible.

National

Machinery & Products

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Cuddling cows

OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…

Bikinis in cowshed

OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter