Andrea Dawkins MP | Greens Information Technology and Innovation spokesperson
Despite what the government told us, it now seems we're getting ready for potential, and serious, outages as the internet service providers move over to Telstra cables.
Tasmanians were lead to believe that the disruption to services would be minimal and superficial. But today, UTAS have advised all staff and students that they will have restricted internet usage when the Basslink cable is cut tomorrow.
This isn't just household video streams being a little slow, this could seriously impact university students, staff and academics. This is the same university we praise nationally and internationally, the same academic community we pride ourselves on supporting.
The cable cut was always going to risk being inconvenient to home internet users, but an interruption to UTAS' connection and the interruption to their everyday business is much more serious.
We should be using this as an opportunity to improve Tasmania's connectivity. The Greens have long called for a new high-speed undersea data cable, and the Basslink fault has put that need into sharp focus.
This Summer has revealed how vulnerable we are as an island State. It's important that this government invests in our IT future and ensures we aren't left with a second-rate connection again.