Special guest for our 14 July 2010 meeting is Mr Chris Taylor, General Manager of Telstra Countrywide.

We have been very critical of poor broadband service and infrastructure in the Gungahlin district - particularly Telstra's infamous Crace Exchange.

Mr Taylor requested an opportunity to respond to our criticisms - and we are more than happy to give him that opportunity. We're sure that many Gungahlin residents who've been struggling for years with slow broadband service, or are even still stuck on dial-up, will want to explain their personal circumstances to Mr Taylor too.

The meeting is on Wednesday 14 July, from 7.30 pm, at the Palmerston Community Centre, Tiptree Crescent, just behind the Palmerston shops.

Mr Taylor was originally meant to attend our June meeting, but had to defer. In the meantime he tells us, that the Crace Exchange has undergone some upgrades to address some of the problems. The Telstra Wholesale infrastructure status website quotes these upgrades as: "This report identifies the expected date when DSLAM will undergo a software upgrade that will allow removal of shaping from 8Mb/s DSL-L2IG Services." This report appears to indicate that those of us who have been paying the extra for 8Mbps service have actually been getting a 'shaped' service instead - that is, a service intentionally throttled down to a slower service - the same as should happen ONLY when you exceed your download limit. Anyone with one of these services can attest that this has been MUCH slower - to the point of being near dial-up speeds every single evening for months. Yet the website seems to say that all that was needed to fix this was a software upgrade...We look forward to Mr Taylor explaining this.

As with all GCC meetings, it will be video recorded and posted afterwards onto our website. Any attendees not wishing to appear on the recording should speak to the camera operator (Dave) prior to the start of the meeting.

Media outlets should note that our original recordings are in high definition digital, so we can provide footage from our meetings if desired.