Richmond Shire Council farewells local internet provider

In 2017, Richmond Shire Council partnered with Wi-Sky owner Will Harrington to conduct a pilot program for a locally owned and operated internet provider.

But in December Richmond Shire Council changed their internet service back to Telstra and continues to investigate its best internet option.

Council Chief Executive Officer Peter Bennett said the decision was "purely commercial".

"We recently changed to Telstra from Wi-Sky. This was purely a commercial decision with council getting an increased bandwidth for less money by switching to Telstra. Council still supports Wi-Sky and the fantastic service they offer and will work with them going forward for the benefit of the whole community," Mr Bennett said.

"Council's main goal with internet services going forward is to be able to work with all service providers to get the best outcome for Richmond residents."

According to the December 2023 council minutes, Mr Bennett and mayor John Wharton had a meeting scheduled with QCN Fibre to discuss solutions to deliver high speed Internet to homes and businesses in Richmond.

"I am in negotiations with several parties to try and advance the internet service within Richmond, but I have signed non-disclosure agreements and I can't talk to about some of the options I am exploring," Mr Bennett said.

"At this stage that may be a fixed wireless service for Richmond that would offer speeds up to 300mb per second at a reasonable cost.

"In this day and age everyone needs fast reliable Internet, not just council. Council has found that the national fibre network that it gets its connection from has been very good over the last seven years and wants the rest of the community to experience this too."

Wi-Sky owner Will Harrington said it was sad to see the council go as a client, but he couldn't match what other providers were offering.

"We buy wholesale. Unfortunately another provider came in and sold the service to them that we can't even buy it for, which makes it really tough," Mr Harrington said.

"The provider must have decided that they wanted to lose money and take the customer, which is a hard one.

"They have the capability of losing money on a service, that's a loss leader. The council is an important customer but we would be losing money if we offered the same. If we are losing money we can't provide the service that we want to the customer."