Internet with no strings attached

By Shaun Inguanzo
NOBLE Park residents could soon beat the ‘digital divide’ with the prospect of wireless public Internet access for the town’s new community centre.
Noble Park Ward councillor Kevin Walsh and City of Greater Dandenong chief executive Carl Wulff said the new Noble Park Community Centre could have public Internet access.
Cr Walsh said he was an advocate for public Internet access in Noble Park, where residents had to travel to Springvale or Dandenong to use the library network’s free Internet.
Mr Wulff said plans were sketchy, but the community centre was being investigated as a place for Internet access.
Due to the telephone line infrastructure that ADSL Internet technology needs in some parts of Noble Park, Mr Wulff said council would look at transmitting and receiving data wirelessly so Noble Park residents could publicly use the Internet.
“We will be discussing that with users of that facility to see if there are options for extending some sort of public access to the community through the Noble Park Community Centre,” Mr Wulff said.
“What it looks like and how it will operate are not yet determined, so it would be premature to try and indicate what shape or form.
“But certainly the opportunity is going to be explored prior to the opening of the facility next year.
Meanwhile, the City of Greater Dandenong last week announced that its Internet training for people of nonEnglish speaking backgrounds was proving successful.
The council’s libraries, arts and heritage manager, Karen WardSmith, said the State Library’s Vicnet division, along with the Office of Senior Victorians, was providing Internet training under the Multilingual Senior Surfers program.
She said Dandenong Library would host two sessions this month for Chinese senior citizens.
“The group of Chinese senior surfers will have the opportunity to learn all about the Internet in their own language during two sessions to be held at the Dandenong Library on November 14 and 21.”
The sessions will run between 10.30am and 12.30pm.