With Stephen Jones MP, Shadow Minister for Regional Communications.

The NBNCo CEO’s singling out of online gamers as the predominant cause of congestion on the fixed-wireless network is both misguided and disappointing.

It beggars belief that Australians are being categorised and criticised for using the internet.

This ill-judged assertion was made despite the Cisco Visual Network Index forecasting that online gaming would only account for 2.9 per cent of consumer traffic in 2018, up from 2.4 per cent in 2017.

Even a blog on NBNCo’s own website notes:

“Believe it or not, some of the biggest online games use very little data while you’re playing compared to streaming HD video or even high-fidelity audio.”

 The on-and-off messaging highlights a concerning pattern of hype and under-delivery by the public relations arm of the company, which for too long has placed spin above substance at the taxpayers’ expense.

Regional Australians want NBNCo to focus on configuring its network to deliver the best possible experience.

Making promises to deliver a 100 Mbps upgrade path – then “killing it” - and now taking a swipe at online gamers for simply using the internet, is a misguided strategy to achieve this objective.