Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

  (i) on 4 June 2018, Mr Bill Morrow told the Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network (NBN) that NBN Co was considering instituting a fair use policy to curb the usage of some customers on fixed wireless who were using terabytes of data and characterised these customers as being 'predominantly gamers',

  (ii) Mr Morrow also stated that 'when people are gaming it is a high bandwidth requirement that's a steady stream',

  (iii) Mr Morrow also stated that, as a layer 2 company, NBN Co does not have the data to know how users are consuming data,

  (iv) online video games require a very minimal amount of bandwidth at approximately 10MB per hour versus streaming a 720p video at approximately 500MB per hour, and

  (v) according to NBN Co's own webpage entitled 'How much data does gaming use? A handful of popular examples' published on 29 December 2016, 'some of the biggest online games use very little data while you're playing compared to streaming HD video or even high-fidelity audio';

(b) acknowledges that online video game players are not to blame for the poor performance of the NBN, during peak or other times, over any NBN technology; and

(c) calls on the government to deliver a fit-for-purpose national broadband network that meets the needs of all Australians, including those in rural, regional and remote areas.