Archive for November, 2009

Caroline Le Couteur MLA reponds

November 28th, 2009

Caroline Le Couteur, the Greens member for Molonglo and deputy chair of ACT Planning Committee has responded to the letter I sent last week.

The level of local support and representation of this issues how covers all major parties. Also great is Caroline’s commitment to representing the issues at the ACT Planning Committee at its next meeting.

Chris Taylor should be getting letters and inquiries from all sides of politics now. This local pressure might spark some response from him.

I do want to make one point. Many people have commented about the TransACT roll out of FTTP in Gungahlin. From what I can gather it is only greefields sites currently under development. It does not yet include existing suburbs affected by congestion and RIM/CMUX deployments. More on that later.

The response is listed below for you to read. It is the electronic version she emailed to me. I have received a signed copy.

GUNGAHLIN INTERNET – GILLON

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Persistence Pays Off

November 25th, 2009

It would appear that my mother was right all along, persistence does pay off. I received two responses from local members of the Legislative Assembly today, one from Zed Seselja and the other from Andrew Barr.

I am glad our local members are starting to take notice of the issues in Gungahlin, even if I had to use some provocative language to get a response.

I am pleased to see that Zed has taken steps to investigate the issue with Telstra and has assured me that he will let me know of the outcome. Having both Jon Stanhope’s office and the leader of the opposition both involved should start to send a message to Telstra.

Andrew Barr’s response entails forwarding the issue to the Chief Minister’s office but I still hope Andrew will write to Telstra as well.

The Greens are still to respond to either of my letters but it is still early days. I do expect a response from them, and look forward to working with all members of the Legislative Assembly to fix this issue.

I have attached both responses below and hope to receive more soon.

Andrew Barr – Response.pdf

Zed Seselja – Response.pdf

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Posted in Correspondence, News

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Second Round of Letters to ACT Legislative Assembly

November 20th, 2009

At around 4:45pm on Thursday 19th November I sent a second round of letters to the ACT Legislative Assembly Members for Molonglo. These letters were sent in an attempt rally more local support behind the issue prior to me going federal with the campaign.

My strategy at this point is to get all the local members passing the issue up to federal members at the same time as I write to the federal members. It is an attempt to present the issue as it really is…a community wide issue.

As Jon Stanhope’s office and Katy Gallagher did respond and forward Gungahlin’s concerns already, I did not send them a letter. They have done something and should get some credit for action where others have done very little.

I have attached all the letters below, they are all very similar except for the personalised third paragraph.

I have to admit the language in these letters is far more direct and challenging than the first letter sent in September. I will call members out who continue to show no interest in local matters. As I explain in my letter this is about the constituents and local business and there are a hell of a lot of us affected.

Senators Stephen Conroy, Garry Humphries, Kate Lundy are next as well as Bob McMullan.

2nd Letter MLA – Simon Corbell.pdf

2nd Letter MLA – Shane Rattenbury.pdf

2nd Letter MLA – Jeremy Hanson.pdf

2nd Letter MLA – Caroline Le Couteur.pdf

2nd Letter MLA – Andrew Barr.pdf

2nd Letter MLA – Zed Seselja.pdf

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Posted in Correspondence

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Why Do I Use Speedtest.net?

November 18th, 2009

A few people have remarked on how much I rely on tests like www.speedtest.net.

There are many reasons why I like using speed tests, for one it helps quantify the issues being experienced in Gungahlin in a repeatable and standardised way. It is hard for many users to describe how poor the user experience actually is in Gungahlin. In many cases the users’ concerns are dismissed because they can not be articulated in a context that has meaning.

I have to admit that I used the speed test site to determine point in time upload and download speeds only. After doing the test I tweeted earlier tonight I had a look around the site a bit more and found a nugget of gold.

Speed Comparison 18Nov09

The scary thing is the actual results in the image above. If you wanted independant verification of your speeds against the average for the country then it is right there. Unfortunately Internode has changed IP address schemes in Canberra and the online databases have not managed to update yet. This means the IP address for my connection is still registered as being in Queensland and not in the ACT. That will update in time.

Doing these speed tests adds to a global database of informaiton gathered by others using the service. By doing a test your results are contributing to a resource others will gain benefit from.

How much more does one need to say about Gungahlin Broadband after looking at the graph? Not much, not much at all.

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Katy Gallagher Comes Good.

November 6th, 2009

Earlier this week I recieved a letter from Katy Gallagher, Deputy Chief Minister regarding my correspondance.

To her credit Katy has read and responded to the requests I made in my original letter. She has represented my concerns to both Telstra and to Senator Conroy in writing.

I am very glad to see local representation on this issue. It also highlights the lack of response from the Greens and Liberal members of the Legisative Assembly.

Thank you Katy for your response and action.

To see Katy’s letter writen on behalf of the Chief Minister click the link below.

Katy Gallagher Response – 261009.pdf

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Posted in General