If we could get copper there a century ago, shouldn't we be able to get fibre there now? Credit: Carl Curtain (ABC Rural)

I'm frequently stunned by some of the comments I hear in the debate on broadband in Australia.

Most stunning amongst them are those from folk who claim their current broadband connection is more than adequate for their foreseeable needs. They could possibly be correct - provided they have no intention of utilising any of the innovations that will be released over the next 10 to 20 years.

But travel an hour or more out of a major centre and you'll hear a very different story.

I was fortunate in April to spend the best part of a week presenting a series of introductory workshops on the digital economy to communities throughout Western Queensland, organised by the Central Western Queensland Remote Area Planning and Development Board (RAPAD).

Spend some time talking to managers of cattle stations that are hours away from the nearest town, and you get a very different view of the importance of broadband. It is a perspective that is backed with a great deal of frustration.

Broadband is the great leveller for regional societies. It tears down barriers to communications and commerce. It gives residents access to services for which they might previously have previously driven hours (or days). It enables them to participate in education programs hosted anywhere in the world, and delivers greater access to healthcare through telehealth. And it opens up a wider range of employment opportunities through teleworking.

That is, provided you have sufficient bandwidth. Anyone who says you can do all of these things on today's networks needs to jump in their car and meet a few people who can't.

For Australians living outside of a township, a broadband connection via ADSL or 3G is the stuff of legend. The best that many can hope for is satellite with speeds measured in the kilobits-per-second range, with terrible latency (put simply the lag between hitting the return key and getting a response). According to many of the people I spoke to, satellite reception is patchy at best.

The proposed National Broadband Network promises to run fibre to 93 per cent of Australian households. An interim satellite service is already in play and offers a download speed of just 6 Mb/s (and 1 Mb/s up) with restrictive data caps. When NBN Co's Long Term Satellite Service is launched in 2015 speeds will increase to 12 Mb/s (the so-called Rolls Royce solution).

But most regional broadband users are stuck with an inferior satellite service offered up under the Australian Broadband Guarantee, and must wait for that contract to expire before they can access the interim service. This means that those regional Australians who most want their broadband satellite service improved are prevented from accessing the NBN interim service.

In terms of the fibre rollout, 93 per cent sounds like an impressive number for a country with Australia's population dispersal. Unless of course you are one of the 7 per cent who will have to accept an inferior solution.

Maybe it is better to think of the 7 per cent as a real number - 1.6 million Australians.

For city dwellers - myself included - it is easy to dismiss this disparity on the grounds that running fibre to every home in Australia unaffordable.

But tell that to someone who is currently suffering with a satellite connection that makes basic services that city folk take for granted - such as Skype - into an unpleasant experience.

Or tell that to children studying with the School of the Air, who are struggling to access to a digital-based curriculum. Or to their parents who are worrying about the learning opportunities their children are missing out on.

And it's even more galling to think that when the new satellites are up, country residents will be paying the same price for that service that every other Australian pays, despite its comparative inferiority. Yes - their access will be subsidised, but their out-of-pocket expenses are the same as everyone else's. A city dweller can expect to have access to a network which performs eight times better than satellite and with less latency.

Perhaps we should take heed of developments in Finland, where the government made access to broadband a legal right for every citizen in July 2010. Finland's initial goal was to ensure that all citizens were connected at speeds of at least 1Mb/s. The longer term goal is to have all connected at 100Mb/s by 2015.

Granted, Finland has only 5.4 million people, and would easily fit into NSW twice. But this initiative recognises the fundamental importance of broadband within society. Sometimes it takes a government drawing a line in the sand to create the environment where insolvable problems become solvable.

Broadband is becoming an essential tool within Australian society, with digital literacy rivalling regular literacy and numeracy in its importance in shaping a person's social and professional options. It is unfair that the opportunities presented to any Australian should be limited by where they live.

Our reliance on broadband for commerce, education, healthcare and basic interaction within society are only increasing. Think how far we have come in 20 years. Imagine how far we will go in the next 20. How happy would you be with an inferior connection - regardless of how much better it might be than experience that you have today?

There are no easy solutions to the problem of providing high-speed broadband to the most remote parts of Australia. But that doesn't mean it should be put in the 'too hard' basket. The challenge of providing high-speed access to remote areas is one that needs to be tackled both now and long after the NBN or any alternative network is deployed.

So next time you hear someone tell you that today's broadband is fine, spare a thought for the 1.6 million Australians who will be left further and further behind. And ask which price is greater -finding solutions to provide ubiquitous high-speed broadband across the country, or creating a two-speed society of haves and have nots.

The digital divide has long been talked about as a conceptual gap in modern society. Failure to tackle regional broadband could see it becoming a geographical one also.

Author's correction: The author notes that he has not mentioned that more than half of the 7 per cent of Australians who will not receive a fibre service will be connected to the NBN by a fixed wireless service using LTE technology at an initial maximum speed of 12 Mbps. This still significantly lags what will be made available to city residents.