It might be more than a year away, but Wednesday’s announcement that the National Broadband Network will be available to almost 25,000 more homes and businesses in the Maitland area is good news.
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The federal government says it will begin work before September, 2016, to install fixed line, high-speed broadband infrastructure in almost every Maitland suburb.
This is on top of work that is already under way in parts of East Maitland.
Since it became available to the public, the internet has become ingrained in many people’s work, study and social habits.
But it’s no secret that slow and dodgy internet connections have been an ongoing problem for people across the Hunter.
The Mercury often hears stories from readers who pay good money for sub-standard services.
It’s hard to believe that internet service is so poor in places like Thornton, that someone would have to climb onto their roof to get enough reception to download their work roster, as the Mercury reported last November.
Stories like these are similar to those of patchy mobile phone reception in regional towns that make the local hill a popular place for people who want to make a call.
But the internet has been around long enough that people who live and work in regional cities like Maitland should be able to access the internet whenever they need to, without the frustrations that many currently experience.
Hopefully those frustrations will disappear when the NBN is rolled out.
People in places like Morpeth, Thornton, Tenambit and Largs will no doubt be keen to live in a world where web pages download instantly and YouTube videos never pause to buffer.