Table 4. CASE STUDY 2 Mistake Creek... | Emerald Publishing

Table 4.

CASE STUDY 2 Mistake Creek State School, suboptimal communication and poor connectivity literacy

Background	Problem statement	Outcome	Gold star solution
Mistake Creek State School’s telecommunications, provided by Education Queensland, also serve community events. Before 2020, the school had no mobile coverage. Under Round 4 of the Mobile Black Spot Program (Australian Government, 2022), the school received funding for a Telstra Small Cell, designed for low bandwidth coverage in small areas. Announced in March 2019 and installed in April 2020, the project faced delays, including a $24k+ development application fee, later reduced to $12k by the Shire Council. The council initially aimed for a full tower, but it wasn’t feasible due to the lack of available backhaul	Education Queensland (EDU QLD) did not permit the small cell to be built on school grounds, so a local landowner agreed to have it installed. The school has faced multiple technology migrations and ongoing connectivity issues. Currently, it is connected via telstra’s agile satellite solution, which is inadequate. Staff have also struggled to get nbn^TM connections to staff accommodation, even when willing to pay. The department of housing refused the free nbn installation, preventing staff from accessing the internet at home	In recent years, Mistake Creek School has undergone multiple technology migrations. Before 2018, the school used an Optus satellite service. By 2020, it had a nbn^TM satellite, but connectivity issues persisted. The teacher could not get Education Queensland’s (EDU QLD) IT department to help her when issues arose with the nbn^TM equipment (causing significant dropouts). EDU QLD’s IT department told the teacher to go to Telstra. However, Telstra was not the retail Service Provider. As a result, Telstra sent the teacher back to EDU QLD’s IT department. EDU QLD’s IT department told the teacher to contact nbn^TM (nbn^TM are a wholesaler, not a Retail Service Provider, so they could not help). The teacher faced a frustrating cycle of blame between Education Queensland (EDU QLD), Telstra, and nbnTM, with no resolution. In 2020, the school switched to a Telstra Small Cell satellite, which had limited capacity not sufficient to service the needs of the entire school. In 2023, Telstra installed their Agile Satellite system (Telstra, n.d.). This is a GEO based system and the school continues to have connectivity issues	A better solution would be a thorough needs analysis of the school’s connectivity requirements and a place-based assessment of what is available, costs of the infrastructure and plans, length of contract etc

Background	Problem statement	Outcome	Gold star solution
Mistake Creek State School’s telecommunications, provided by Education Queensland, also serve community events. Before 2020, the school had no mobile coverage. Under Round 4 of the Mobile Black Spot Program (Australian Government, 2022), the school received funding for a Telstra Small Cell, designed for low bandwidth coverage in small areas. Announced in March 2019 and installed in April 2020, the project faced delays, including a $24k+ development application fee, later reduced to $12k by the Shire Council. The council initially aimed for a full tower, but it wasn’t feasible due to the lack of available backhaul	Education Queensland (EDU QLD) did not permit the small cell to be built on school grounds, so a local landowner agreed to have it installed. The school has faced multiple technology migrations and ongoing connectivity issues. Currently, it is connected via telstra’s agile satellite solution, which is inadequate. Staff have also struggled to get nbn^TM connections to staff accommodation, even when willing to pay. The department of housing refused the free nbn installation, preventing staff from accessing the internet at home	In recent years, Mistake Creek School has undergone multiple technology migrations. Before 2018, the school used an Optus satellite service. By 2020, it had a nbn^TM satellite, but connectivity issues persisted. The teacher could not get Education Queensland’s (EDU QLD) IT department to help her when issues arose with the nbn^TM equipment (causing significant dropouts). EDU QLD’s IT department told the teacher to go to Telstra. However, Telstra was not the retail Service Provider. As a result, Telstra sent the teacher back to EDU QLD’s IT department. EDU QLD’s IT department told the teacher to contact nbn^TM (nbn^TM are a wholesaler, not a Retail Service Provider, so they could not help). The teacher faced a frustrating cycle of blame between Education Queensland (EDU QLD), Telstra, and nbnTM, with no resolution. In 2020, the school switched to a Telstra Small Cell satellite, which had limited capacity not sufficient to service the needs of the entire school. In 2023, Telstra installed their Agile Satellite system (Telstra, n.d.). This is a GEO based system and the school continues to have connectivity issues	A better solution would be a thorough needs analysis of the school’s connectivity requirements and a place-based assessment of what is available, costs of the infrastructure and plans, length of contract etc

Source(s): Authors’ own work