From slow speeds to an even slower roll out, Australia’s National Broadband Network has attracted criticism since its conception.
But a Bundaberg father of four has decided to stop moaning about the problems and start fixing them, by launching his own broadband service, Open Cloud, with some friends.
‘I was running a communications business from home. The internet was so bad some nights I could barely send an email,’ he told Weekend Sunrise on Sunday.
‘I thought I could get hold of someone to solve it. When I investigated it, it did not look like anyone was going solve it. The only way to make it happen it was to do it ourselves.’
A Bundaberg father has created his own broadband service after growing tired of waiting for the NBN
An Ipsos poll published by Fairfax last week shows Australia ranks 28 out of 28 countries when it comes to broadband satisfaction
The Queensland man set to work with some friends, who had qualifications in network engineering and routing technology.
They then launched their own internet provider, which is in no way connected to the increasingly beleaguered NBN.
This means clients will be free of many of the congestion and bandwidth problems faced by current users of the national network.
Even better, the company are selling packages with internet connections up to twice the speed of those offered by the NBN.
Outside of Bundaberg, the NBN is the only option for internet going forward, but Mr Baker told The Australian earlier this year he was hoping to change that.
‘We might be just here in Bundy at the moment but as far as I see it, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a real foothold in the market,’ he said.
‘There has never been a time like it in Australian history where we have a monopoly that is causing such pain and frustration and everyone looking for an alternative.’
‘I was running a communications business from home. The internet was so bad some nights I could barely send an email,’ he told Weekend Sunrise on Sunday
Only 32 per cent of Australians rated their internet as ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ good – a significant drop from the world average of 56 per cent
Mr Baker describes himself as the ‘show piece’ of the operation, but has some solid advice for anyone with a problem they’d like to fix themselves.
‘Just find yourself some smart people and team up with them.’
An Ipsos poll published by Fairfax last week shows Australia ranks 28 out of 28 countries when it comes to broadband satisfaction.
Only 32 per cent of Australians rated their internet as ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ good – a significant drop from the world average of 56 per cent.
Earlier this month, a report from the Telecommunications Ombudsman revealed there had been 27,195 complaints about the network over the past financial year.
The staggering amount of complaints is an increase of 159.3 per cent from last financial year.
Of those complaints, nearly 9,000 said either their landline or their internet was ‘fully unusable’.