MEDIA RELEASE - SECOND-RATE NBN LEAVES NSW SMALL BUSINESS REELING - 12 SEPTEMBER 2017

12 September 2017

NSW small businesses have reported the NBN is costing them an average of $9,000 through delays, disruptions and loss of sales.

Of great concern, 43 per cent of the 850 businesses surveyed by the NSW Business Chamber reported being either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the NBN

This figure is nearly three times greater than the 15 per cent dissatisfaction rate claimed by the Turnbull Government.

Further, 39 per cent of those surveyed reported having to wait more than four weeks for their NBN connection to come online, 15 per cent waited three to four weeks, 16 per cent waited one to two weeks and just 30 per cent waited less than one week.

In an interview with ABC breakfast radio a spokesman for the NSW Business Chamber said it was “stunned by the responses”.

                Source: ABC AM, 12 September 2017

This comes on the back of the Council of Small Business Australia (COSBOA) expressing the frustration of its members:

When people think NBN, they think fast internet but then they sign up and find they are getting slower speeds than they were before. We were told it would be so fast it would shock us. It has shocked us but not because it’s fast.”

By abandoning Fibre to the Premises in 2013, then having to play catch-up by rushing the flawed multi-technology mix, the Government has undermined the NBN experience for small business.

Only Labor understands that small business needs fast and reliable broadband to compete in the 21st century.