New mobile tower gives Benloch a new reality
[Connecting Victoria / Victoria State Government]
[Text: Gary – Benloch resident]
[Vision: View of Gary walking through paddock / Gary walking through paddock with dog / Cows passing by Gary in paddock / mobile phone tower in bushland]
Gary
Being in a rural community, there's always the added point of view of safety. But once you get out into the paddock, you're really off the grid by way of connection.
Since the second mobile phone tower was live, it's a bit of a cliche, but it really is a new reality.
[Vision: View of Gary caring for a horse’s hoof / Gary patting horses / Gary on his mobile phone out in a paddock / close-up shots of Gary on his phone]
When I'm out here on the property, doing things on the farm, my wife can ping me, she can look at my location and know where I am. There's an absolute certainty of safety there that we just didn't have in the past.
[Vision: View of Gary and his children sitting in front of a laptop at their table / close-up shots of Gary and his children / close-up shots of laptop]
From a quality-of-life point of view, it's almost a generational change. And as my kids grow up, the access to information is going to be fundamental and we're going to be able to do a lot of that here in our own community.
[Vision: View of children and woman passing around and using a smart TV remote control on couch / close-up of boy eating chips / close-up of girl using mobile phone]
You know, little things like Netflix and streaming TV, you think this sort of stuff is available to everyone, but without that connectivity, it was just something that was absent for us.
The fun that our kids can have, the weekends that we can have watching movies together as a family, all those things are possible for us now, which, in the past, they just weren't something we could even consider.
[Connecting Victoria / Victoria State Government. vic.gov.au/connectingvictoria. Authorised by the Victorian Government, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne]
Updated