BERWICK
Thursday, 29 February, 2024
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Road to recovery
Minister bows out
Mums call for action
Turning point for Tigers
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Huge turnout for 175th Berwick Show Allegra, 14, met Smokey the goat at the Animals Fur All exhibit at the Berwick Show last weekend. In its 175th outing, the show attracted 20,000 people to enjoy a mix of music, stunt bike shows, trade stalls, prize animals, showjumping and the return of woodchopping. Story pages16-17
Picture: ROB CAREW
Coverage calling By Ethan Benedicto While the roads in and out of Clyde North have seen some change, the suburb is still in the shackles of poor cell reception. Clyde North had a population of 31,681 residents in 2021, with Clyde having a population of 11,177, according to that year’s Census by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Despite the growth, Elizabeth Sabelino, who has been living in Clyde North since 2017, is still experiencing reception issues. “To this day the reception hasn’t gotten any better, from my house I still only have one bar on a good day,” she said. In 2016, Clyde North had a population of 8000 residents, while Clyde had 2000 - both suburbs seeing an exponential growth of 288.26 per cent and 427.76 per cent respectively, by 2021.
Ms Sabelino, who was previously a communications intern for the Major Transport Infrastructure Authority, had instances where she worked from home, an experience she said was made challenging by the lack of proficient cell reception. “I’ve had to work around by doing WIFI calling but even that doesn’t help that much. “What I’ve had to do every time there’s a call, I have to go to the front of the house to get better reception,” Ms Sabelino said. Furthermore, idCommunity has forecasted both suburbs to have a combined population of roughly 65,500 in 2024. Maree Cullinan, the manager of the Balla Balla Community Centre in Selandra Rise, echoed Ms Sabelino’s sentiments, saying that the poor cell reception “isn’t really a selling point for Clyde North”. “Many people are still working from home,
and we have trouble even here, we have to go out of the building just to make calls. “The one thing we should have access to is good cell reception, especially in this day and age,” Ms Cullinan said. Mark Gregory, an associate professor in RMIT’s school of engineering said that “the issues are the distribution of the axis points”. “Also things like buildings, the terrain and of course, the location of freeways and vehicles, supermarkets and so on,” he said. The axis point the professor mentioned refers to how factors of a network are being spread out, such as geographical distribution which are physical routers, switches, and servers across an area, and planning their placement for effective and optimal coverage. Another axis is traffic, or data and their movements, which involves ensuring that data flows through different networks efficiently
without causing jams or delays. While topographically Clyde and Clyde North are relatively flat, Professor Gregory said that the weather is one of many things that “really degrade the signal”. “In regards to that you’ve got heat, dust, and moisture in the air. “You mix that in with tall objects like trees, buildings, and hills, you’re going to have a combination of things that are going to affect the signal,” he said. The professor also added that cellular reception is an important part of a suburb’s infrastructure, especially if it’s continuously seeing population growth. “It’s very important to suburbs that are growing because you get these situations where new housing is built and the coverage won’t or may not exist there. Continued page 2
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