Outback towns desperate for fast broadband

In outback Queensland towns where mail and food supplies take weeks to arrive, fast speed broadband cannot come soon enough.
The high-speed internet will become the lifeblood of towns like Birdsville and Bedourie, Diamantina Shire chief executive Scott Mason says.
It will boost economic growth, education and health care.
The national broadband network will deliver faster satellite broadband, but the council is planning to put its own money up to get fibre optic links for the region.
Birdsville and Bedourie have a combined population of 260 and doctors and medical specialists visit every few weeks or months.
You need a lot of patience to live out here, Mr Mason says, but fast broadband will bring the world closer.
"It's underpinning everything, it's the single biggest factor holding back economic growth," he told AAP.
"There's no limit to what we could achieve - from education to health, policing, safety, tourism, grazing, private business, local government, everything.
"It's more important the national broadband network is rolled out to the bush than the city."
Mr Mason said the shire currently had satellite internet, but it was not at a sufficient speed and downloading delays were frequent.
He said fibre optic internet could be a windfall for education.
Currently children must leave Birdsville and Bedourie to go to boarding school for their secondary education and tertiary studies.
He hopes one day that virtual classrooms would mean kids might be able to stay in the towns with their families, but still get access to quality education.
"If we had fibre optic you could have virtual classrooms, you could have the specialist teacher talking about that specialist topic, the kids can get the same opportunities," he said.
"They'll be able to hook into subjects we can't offer out here."
Gifted and struggling students will also be able to get extra educational resources and support, he said.
He said health care would be a huge winner.
"We've recently acquired X-ray machines, we have one in each clinic and eventually when the images will be taken, they'll be able to be sent through a fibre optic cable and one day interpreted by a GP or specialist somewhere," he said.
"If you got a suspected fracture, but it's not, it might be a sprain, if you're in Bedourie it saves them having to go out to Mt Isa, which is a 1000km round trip, just to have that confirmed and come back."
Bedourie's only nurse, Lyn Heaton, told AAP Ehealth would speed up the diagnosis process and save on patient travel.
"Follow-up treatments could be done (with video conferencing online) and that would save so much time and hassle."
She said the area of mental health and diabetes would get a huge boost from video conferencing.
"We don't get the mental health specialist here much," she said.