Benjamin Millar
Melton council is joining Eynesbury residents and businesses in the push for more reliable internet services across the area.
Coburn ward councillor Julie Shannon raised a notice of motion at last week’s council meeting drawing attention to ongoing frustrations regarding internet reliability in the fast-growing Eynesbury community.
Cr Shannon’s motion called upon the council to make representation to the responsible telecommunications providers servicing the Eynesbury area to advocate for improvements to the reliability of internet services currently experienced by Eynesbury residents.
She told the meeting the issue has been regularly raised by residents over the years and that outages can often last for days at a time.
“I just want to say this has come up because there has been so many residents of Eynesbury that have complained to me and to others for years and years and years, and I’m hoping that as a council we can actually shake things up a little bit and try and get some notice taken down there for some solutions,” she said.
The increase in people working from home during the continuing COVID-19 lockdowns, which have also forced school students to move to remote online learning and created more demand for streaming services, has increased the need for reliable internet connections across all communities.
Cr Shannon told the meeting that lockdown periods have made the situation worse, but it hasn’t just been a lockdown issue.
“They’ve had issues on and off for like 10 years, some residents – it’s not like half a day, they will be without internet, telephone, TV, anything, for weeks on end,” she said.
“The middle of Australia has better service than some of the people in Eynesbury at present, so I’m just hoping we can help them.”
Deputy mayor Goran Kesic said he commended Cr Shannon for bringing the motion forward.
“It was a very important motion,” he said.
The motion was passed unanimously.
