Better internet drops in town

It’s a bird, it’s a plane ... no it’s better internet across Kununurra.

Improved connectivity across the town and surrounding farms is set to follow an usual sight a few lucky locals witnessed on a Sunday afternoon earlier this month.

A Helispirit chopper was contracted on August 2 to transport the new CipherTel communications tower to the top of Thegoowiyeng, or Kelly’s Knob, the highest peak in the town centre.

Two adjacent networks have been deployed in the town by the Bunbury telecommunications company to cover more than 40 farm businesses over nearly 1700 square kilometres, as part of the Digital Farm initiative to bridge the “digital divide” in regional Western Australia.

The Digital Farm Grants Program is a State Government initiative to improve digital connectivity in regional WA and was first made available in 2018 through a $5 million round of grants, with the program’s successful recipients including Kununurra businesses.

Grants of up to $500,000 were made available on a matching co-contribution basis to cover capital costs of improving connectivity to multiple farming enterprises and associated stakeholders.

Installation works on the tower continued this week.