Broadband for Wee Jasper ???
Rural Bash Challenge

If you suggested to anyone who knows the location and landscape of Wee Jasper that Broadband Internet access was a possibility, they would probably laugh at you.

Too remote, too small, too spread out...

Well, that is exactly why the Badja Rural Bash has issued a challenge to Telecommunication companies to provide Broadband Internet Access to the small rural community of Wee Jasper. It will also be a good test of the current government subsidies for rural Australia.

Please see below for latest update...

Excerpt from RuralComms - 9 October 2004
A publication of the Rural Bash

Wee Jasper Broadband Challenge
Get broadband to all or most of the users & the campgrounds.
The solution must be wireless or land based but the backhaul can be satellite. 2-3 hill tops will do it.
The pricing and bandwidth must come close to HiBIS guidelines.
Must support telephone via the Internet within 12 months.

The TEST - The Rural BASH must be able to get broadband on a laptop sitting in the campground at Micalong Creek reserve.

The time has come to really test whether the current government incentives are working across the board for rural Australia or whether they need a bit of a "tweak".

I am betting that they are working well in the large population centres and the individual family homes and small businesses (satellite solutions).

Rural Australia however does not have many large populations centres. It is dominated by a huge number of small communities. Towns like Wee Jasper in NSW. Sure, no two towns will be alike, but I have chosen Wee Jasper because of many factors.

Wee Jasper has about 20 potential private broadband users and about 5 commercial. All qualify for HiBIS subsidies if the carrier or ISP is accredited.

The picture below is from the DCITA maps and shows that the town is not serviced by broadband via ADSL nor is it in an ISDN zone.

So lets do the maths. 25 customers paying about $45 per month for say 3 years. That's over $40,000 plus a HiBIS subsidy of $75,000 +GST. So we have over $115,000 to build and operate a Wee Jasper solution for a 3 year period.

After that I expect that the annual income of around $13,500 should be enough to keep it running happily and profitably with very few overheads.

Okay, we have made a few assumptions here and a few demands.
Firstly, what's in it for the company that does the job?

"Press & Praise"
The Rural BASH will ensure that it gets maximum coverage. We can't offer money because that would distort what we are trying to achieve. We can also offer a "nice" certificate with lots of pretty green colours.

All jokes aside, it is obvious that who ever completes this job will have a line up of customers willing to sweeten the deal to get their community connected to broadband. And what are those sweeteners?

Small communities can offer plenty to an interested telco. Firstly it is not likely that others will come in to a saturated marketplace and make their investment wither, leaving them with infrastructure that they must support under HiBIS.

Next, communities can make available hilltops and sites for installations at little or no cost. Assistance in finding customers is "a given".

Local assistance in technology matters is also the norm wherever possible. Communities are generally self sufficient and can lend a hand when the chips are down - resetting the "frozen" box if necessary.

Loyalty is the final part of the mix. I have seen communities hold out from joining a new provider simply because they are loyal to someone who has looked after them for some time. Most waited the extra few months until the friendly face that they all knew was able to connect them.

Back to Wee Jasper - Logging on to broadband at the Micalong Creek Reserve will be a real challenge. It will require Hot Spot technology. Why? There is no real mobile coverage at Wee Jasper. The opportunity to sell connectivity and telephone access is a real step forward and will differentiate the facilities from all others in the region. We are hoping to demonstrate a real boost in the town's fortunes.

And what if no one stands up do the job? Well, that too will prove a point, that we need to adjust the HiBIS scheme to look after everyone and build solid infrastructure for all.

Interested in providing a solution for Wee Jasper?

Contact Robert Brand - 02 9572 6227

Excerpt from RuralComms - 16 October 2004
A publication of the Rural Bash

Great news so far with the Wee Jasper Challenge.

Our current wireless sponsor has put up his hand to have a go. He is still seeking HiBIS accreditation and that will take a bit of time, but we have one possibility at this stage.

We are still seeking further suppliers interested in getting broadband to the township. Just to add a bit of spice to the picture, a Telstra employee was seen surveying what is expected to be a fibre connection from the exchange to the school which is currently connected to the Internet via satellite. This may negate the need to look too far for backhaul although there is no word from Telstra as to the type of link that would be possible if any. This is still an ideal wireless solution and I expect that there are others providers both capable and suitable for such a site. The local community is keen to get up and running with broadband and I expect that they will be good users of the technology.

Interested in providing a solution for Wee Jasper?

Contact Robert Brand - 02 9572 6227 - 04 0202 1113

Excerpt from RuralComms - 14 January 2005
A publication of the Rural Bash

Wee Jasper Update

We have had some success in our efforts to get Wee Jasper connected top the rest of the world. So far two wireless carriers have raised their hand to do the job. One in particular is well placed to provide the rollout.

They are currently in discussions with the Wee Jasper community and hopefully I will be able provide more information as the project moves forward. At this stage I am not willing to name the carrier in case things stall and a company that is trying hard is then seen in a bad light. RuralComms would like to say thank you to those that have taken the time to respond and find out more.

One of the strong messages to come from this exercise is that communities of this size cannot look forward to solutions in the short term. Wee Jasper is a special case and just happens to be in an area where the government are willing to toss in a few extra dollars to "sweeten the pot".

It also seems that older wireless technology is also a short term option. Low cost base stations and higher cost user equipment seems to be the general solution to keeping costs down for a small number of users. Wee Jasper has around 25 users in the valley.

Wireless backhaul also seems to be a necessity and again there are a variety of solutions. IP Star's new satellite offering may change that model and I am waiting to see their pricing.

It will be interesting to be there when Wee Jasper is connected. This small town is very likely to become a model for the future with hot spot offerings to the tourists and campers.

The deadline for the challenge is Oct 2005 when we hope to be able to sit in the Micalong Creek Reserve and connect via a wireless hot spot to the Internet.

Excerpt from RuralComms - 28 January 2005
A publication of the Rural Bash

Wee Jasper is dying...
by Neil Glassford - A Wee Jasper Resident
Although Wee Jasper is only a few kilometres from our Nation's Capitol as the crow flies, we are way back in the last millennium when it comes to phone communications and access to the Internet. And it is slowly killing us.

There would be a huge outcry if anyone in Cities or towns had to put up with Internet access that is so slow you have time to boil a Billy long before a few emails have finished downloading.

Sometimes our dial-up connection speed can be down to twenty times slower than Cityfolk would think is normal, which means it can take fifteen minutes to receive a single photo in an email from a friend...

Try doing Internet research for a University paper or School essay when the access is so slow it would have been quicker to walk to town to do it, many just have to pack up and move to town instead.

By the time we can access important weather information for farming, it has just about already happened outside.

What about the kids? They should be learning about the latest things going on in the world of Information Technology, instead they learn how to play solitaire while they wait for information to download over a painfully slow dial-up connection.

People just laugh if you mention using things like online gaming, downloading videos or any of the newer technologies like Voice over Internet or Internet Telephony, because we do not live for long enough to access those bandwidth-hogging features of your new millennium.

But why should they laugh?

We need to use online Government and Business Services out here as well.
We need access to timely Health Information out here.
We need reasonable access to online Banking out here.
We need reasonable access to Educational and other information services out here too.

Why should we be denied Broadband Internet access, just because there are only a few of us?

Imagine the possibilities of living out here and tele-commuting from home, rather than a 200km round trip to work in Canberra. Think of the extra families that could live out here and work and study from home - extra kids to keep our School open.

Wireless Hotspots would be a great drawcard for extra tourism and the extra dollars to keep our village alive.

When are we going to be allowed to join the new millennium?

Wee Jasper Update

In a previous issue I reported that things were looking up for Wee Jasper. This issue I have to report that the Telco wishing to help Wee Jasper has had to pull out due to more pressing needs to service larger towns closer to their base.

Again I have to appeal to the telcos out there to have a look at Wee Jasper and see if it is possible to get them connected.

Wee Jasper is the Rural BASH's health check. It is a small town of 25 users scattered in a wide valley. These people all qualify for the maximum HiBIS entitlement for the carrier equalling about $3,000 each. As well the carrier can charge them appropriate city rates.

The Rural BASH does not accept that the towns of this size should be made to connect each user with a satellite service. This would make services such as Voice over IP (VoIP) unacceptable and other future services similarly unusable.

The Rural BASH believes that towns and communities like Wee Jasper are do-able and profitable, but they are being over looked for more profitable sites and those sites may already have other broadband!

Country Australia needs incentives to service areas that are not already connected to broadband.

Country Australia is too big and too sparsely populated to let market forces solely determine the outcome. Although the HiBIS subsidies help get broadband to new areas, HiBIS allows carriers to compete in towns already overflowing with competition.

We need more ways to direct the services to where they are needed. HiBIS is a good initiative, but lacks a strong tuning/review mechanism. Time to look more closely at these problems.

Robert Brand for the Rural BASH

Excerpt from RuralComms - July 2005
A publication of the Rural Bash

The Rural BASH has a challenge running for ISPs to service the small community of Wee Jasper in NSW. It is a test of how effective initiatives like HiBIS are performing. Several carriers have been interested and despite Telstra having optical fibre into the town, none are able to afford to service the community via the fibre due to the high prices. Several have considered using their own wireless networks back to Yass but then they still face high charges back to a capital city. All have walked away from the challenge.

Telstra is now considering how to get broadband into Wee Jasper and ADSL was mentioned as a possible solution, but how can Telstra afford to do this?

Simple; it does not pay the same rates internally that they charge other carriers. They may decide not to put ADSL into Wee Jasper, but they have placed it into other communities around the country overcoming similar barriers.

Considering that it maintains an Australia wide (uniform) price for broadband/Internet access, then the backhaul charges would seem to be a minute part of their equation and thus a very low internal cost.

Excerpt from RuralComms - August 2005
A publication of the Rural Bash

The Wee Jasper Challenge goes Unchallenged
It has been a year since we challenged the telco sector to put broadband into Wee Jasper. So far no one has been able to achieve the task.

The challenge was established to show that the government’s (Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme) HiBIS did not achieve equality for all. It seems that it would be cheaper for individuals to take up satellite services than it would be to create a solution for the whole community. HiBIS does not reward more desirable community solutions over individual solutions.

We showed the money available under HiBIS and the number of customers, we also showed a relatively cheap two base station wireless system that could provide coverage of the valley and the income from customers. Still no one jumped in to solve the problem. We offered to then write up the solution and show other small communities “how to do it”.

We have had a few try, but with little success. They have been distracted by the distance or the more lucrative markets.

I will be visiting Wee Jasper in October and having a closer look at wireless distribution options. I will also be looking at a satellite service for the backhaul. I’ll report on that trip later.

Finally some good news - March 2006

We have finally got a starter to meet and beat the Wee Jasper Challenge
WireFree Networks are based in Crookwell and operate a rapidly expanding system of Wireless repeater towers which they will join us in to.
Planning is in the very final stages and final locations for the major equipment have been decided on. All that is needed now is some negotiations with landholders, and then the set up begins. If all goes to plan, we should have the first users on a guaranteed 1 megabit minimum connection by the end of this month. WAHOOOO

Click here to go to the WireFree Networks website

THEY HAVE DONE IT!!! March 2006

WireFree Networks has got Broadband to the Wee Jasper Valley
The first few residents have been hooked up to the WireFree system and are now enjoying a 1 MegaBit Internet Connection
Some final testing (with the help of some local "guinea-pigs") and adjustments will happen over the next week or so, and then they are open for business.
The first VOIP (Voice over Internet - or internet phone) calls have been successfully made from Wee Jasper.

Rural Bash Website | RuralComms - 9 October 2004 | Badja Website

Broadband for Wee Jasper ???Rural Bash Challenge

Broadband for Wee Jasper ???
Rural Bash Challenge