Forty people attended the MIRRA meeting held on Saturday 1st July.
MIRRA recieved a letter from Phillip Thompson MP advising that Telstra has upgrades planned for all 4 mobile phone base stations on the island for 4 and 5g services - these will be completed during September and October 2023.
The MP also wrote to Assistant Defence Minister, Matt Thistlewaite, concerning the Amaroo Holiday Apartments. The Minister replied that Defence will continue with its plan to sell apartment site on the open market in August and the remainder will be handed over to QNPWS.
Phillip also raised the bus/ferry timetabling issue with the State member, Scott Stewart and also the State Transport Minister, Mark Bailey, but so far has heard nothing from them.
Kym Schubert, Manager Network Operations and Deployment for QCN gave a presentation and took questions from the floor. QCN is a government owned corporation – 51% by Powerlink and 49% by Energy Queensland (Ergon and Energex Qld) and uses spare capacity on state assets to close the internet/digital divide between regional and metro areas. It’s proposing two connections to the island, a submarine fibre optic cable and wireless connection for back-up, as well as building connectivity around the island to existing base station points for a fixed wireless network.
However there is much work to be done to get environmental approval for the submarine cable. Fibre optic cable will also be used to connect the fixed wireless sites using existing power distribution easements.
Also more base stations may be required to get the fixed wireless to all locations on the island. It relies on Federal funding of $8 million. Applications close on the 12th of August 2023 and if successful QCN plans to start work within 12 months and complete within 3 years. This service will then be available to ALL internet suppliers at wholesale rates.
Kym then answered a number of questions:
1. Weather damage and maintenance. Will be undertaken by Ergon as it is for power line issues.
2. Damage to rooftop antennas. Same as it is now - up to homeowner.
3. No power at West Point. Wasn’t aware - will look into it.
Dave Morrissey, GM for OPTUS in NQ, told those in attendance that antennas on all 4 base stations upgraded to directional/segmented units. Auto start generators were also installed in three base stations, excluding Arcadia. The back-haul link to the mainland from the island was also upgraded from 500Mbps to 2Gbps fixing a bottleneck in capacity.
Dave also spoke about the buses and their being unable to provide an eftpost charge for fares and says he followed a bus and stopped at most of bus stops, including the one at the Forts walk and got a good signal at all of them. He says with the addition of a power amplifier and antenna you would get full connectivity and it was up to Translink to trial this. He also totally dismissed 5g health concerns.
Mayor Jenny Hill addressed the recently released annual budget. Water charges up 4%, sewerage up 2%, no increase in the dollar for General rate. Property values will still affect this but is capped at a 10% increase and will average out at around 3%.
TCC are still working with DES on the Picnic Bay sewerage works – response expected in new financial year.
The next MIRRA meeting Saturday 5th August.