Moruya Chamber of Commerce has joined its northern neighbour’s push to improve mobile coverage during peak holiday periods.
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Slow internet and bad mobile phone coverage has been felt around the Eurobodalla this summer and Batemans Bay’s Chamber of Commerce has initiated a petition calling for the government and major telcos to solve the problem.
Moruya Chamber president Lilian Brindley said the mobile meltdown had also been “catastrophic” for Moruya.
“Obviously at this time of year, businesses want full access to their internet,” she said.
“It’s impacting on businesses because, unless you get on the internet before eight o’clock in the morning, it takes a long time to get anything downloaded, and emails especially.
“I think a petition is a good idea and I think we should all get on board.”
The Eurobodalla’s population triples to an estimated 105,000 people in summer, which congests internet and mobile services and can cause ATM carriers to crash.
“It was an overload,” Ms Brindley said. “There was definitely a change from December to January.”
Ms Brindley said businesses were strained by the delay in receiving emails, which was affecting their customers – many of whom are online.
“If you’re not getting an email for six hours because it’s taking that time to come through the service, people aren’t getting an answer for that long.
“And people like an answer a lot quicker than what they’re sending.
“It’s very testing for small-business people.”
No notification is also a problem and Ms Brindley says it was too big for a simple fix.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re talking to the telecommunications people. It doesn’t matter what they say, they’re not going to get any help, it’s not going to get fixed.
“We need to put the pressure on.”
She hopes the three Eurobodalla Chamber presidents will band together at the end of the month to create a “unified approach” to a petition.