Great Southern users are still frustrated

Amelup grower Marcus Sounness and Borden-based BAS agent Nicky Williams are encouraging those in regional WA to educate themselves on the new service as they continue to deal with poor internet and phone connectivity.

But the pair recognise they are lucky to get any service at all, with the townsite and surrounds of Borden being a virtual blackspot without assistance from Telstra antennas.

Ms Williams said her business relied entirely on the internet to operate and in a day she would deal with fluctuating signal to no service.

This fluctuation brings with it an inability to pay bills or superannuation online, send emails with attachments or download computer updates.

"It's impossible to sell grain, you go to confirm but you don't know if you've confirmed your contract, I had to wait until I got a signal again to check," she said.

"Superannuation is a big bug bear for me as a BAS agent, I want everyone to pay on time as that's a target point for the ATO and if you can't pay it on time and you can't pay your suppliers on time everyone gets angry.

"You have to plan your payments, the cash flow may not be there for some businesses, but if the internet isn't there you can't plan, you can't run your business."

Ms Williams said she regularly talked with Telstra to report her concerns, and is looking forward to a tower that had been promised for Borden as a part of the federal government's Mobile Black Spot program (MBSP).

She hoped with a new tower and the possibility of Sky Muster access the heat would be taken off of the existing tower and a useful level of serviceability would return to her area.

Similarly, Mr Sounness can remember a time within the past 12 months when his internet was "tolerable".

As a participant in a national Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) campaign he could upload a two minute YouTube video overnight in about five hours, but now he wouldn't bother.

"I'm actually in a good coverage area, I have a line of sight to the Stirling Ranges tower," he said.

"I used to have really good internet speeds but it has really deteriorated in the past 12 months and I think that's with the rise of people getting smart antennas and repeaters which has meant more people can access the signal.

"From what we had when we first started as one of the first ones on a 3G modem and now we have antennas and other devices, it's dropped off to being dysfunctional."

Mr Sounness operates Office 365 which requires almost constant internet access, and he uses Twitter, YouTube and email.

"It's not always the connection speed that's the problem, it's that it drops out," he said.

"I started to update Office 365 at 5am the other day and by midday it had done 81 per cent and froze at that.

"For all of this stuff, I'm not that clever so I need tech support, so then I need TeamViewer and the techs on the other end are tearing their hair out."

Mr Sounness said he was aware of some great educational tools the MLA provided online and was disappointed he could not access them.

But he holds high hopes the Sky Muster will help solve this issue.

Commentary following the Federal budget announcement last week has highlighted there is no new funding allocation for mobile phone blackspots.

But O'Connor MP Rick Wilson said the existing building program extended several years.

"We've still got two years to go before we finish building the towers announced in round one of the MBSP which is $100 million leveraged by $350m of State and private money," Mr Wilson said.

"Round two of $60m leverages what you could assume is a similar ratio of money and will be announced in the second half of this year.

"That policy is funded and locked away and will happen regardless of the election.

"We're pushing out to another year or two beyond the two years we've got now."

Mr Wilson said he was disappointed at the long lead time for Telstra to build the towers and recognised the funding announcements and planned tower builds were of "little comfort" to people in a mobile blackspot area.

But he said residents living in regional and rural areas in O'Connor, which includes the Borden area, could start connecting to affordable, high-speed broadband via Sky Muster.

"As a Katanning farmer, I know how frustrating slow internet speeds are and I'm delighted rural and regional people will be able to access an excellent service," Mr Wilson said.

"The launch of Sky Muster will change the lives of people in O'Connor, where an estimated 24,505 homes and businesses are eligible to access the service.

"This is more people than any other electorate in WA, so the demand here is huge."