$500,000 NBN quotes spark call from Warrnambool business for change

A school and medical centre were among those to receive hefty quotes to upgrade their technology - something they are being forced to consider as other internet providers start scaling back and phasing out older technologies because fewer people were using it, Multicomm's chief technology officer Jarred Mast said.

"Their hands are really forced as a commercial decision to turn off that legacy technology," Mr Mast said.

Businesses were now having to look at other options, either NBN upgrades or Telstra 4G - a technology that was around long before the NBN began rolling out.

"I had a business that had a $300,000 quote to get fibre run to their building, I know there was a school in that had a quote for $500,000," he said.

He said the school was desperate get better access to technology for the kids but their only hope was to seek grants to help cover the cost of installation.

"It's been pretty ridiculous. You've got people looking for this fancy new NBN and we're kinda going backwards."

Mr Mast said businesses and residents in town could probably easily connect to the NBN, but as soon as you get on the edge of town like Port Fairy and Koroit the costs started to mount.

"The wireless spectrum is not anywhere near as capable as the likes of a direct fibre service. People that need that are getting quotes from NBN for half a million dollars to get fibre to run to your house," he said.

"I'm not even joking."

Mr Mast said the pricing was not realistic when you looking at return on investment.

"It's an improvement, but is it half a million dollars better? Probably not," he said.

Sectors being affected were education, agribusiness, indigenous and non-profit organistions.

In the modern technology era where more people were working from home or working remotely, he said it was time governments started looking at how it could be made more affordable for those in remote locations.

Mr Mast said it was "pot luck" as to what a connection to NBN would cost.

"We're in the horrible position as IT providers where we are telling people you can really improve your business agility if you use these cloud services, but you're probably going to be better off to just hanging off your mobile phone in the back of a park than it is trying to use a connection on the NBN which is insane," he said.

"Some places are looking at things like getting on Elon Musk's low orbit satellite stuff just to get a connection."

Mr Mast said it had been a problem from a long time, but with older technologies being phased out it was becoming an issue for more and more businesses.

"Technology people have been saying for a long time that it's just insane that the whole idea of NBN was to hit the last five per cent of people who were having trouble getting connectivity, and they're the ones still getting left behind," he said.

He said even before the NBN rollout, people could have paid that sort of money to get a fibre service running to their business - "so what was the NBN network for?"

"We need a better solution to the way it's done, how it is priced," he said.

"There is some level of sanity required here."

Member for Wannon Dan Tehan said his office had been in touch directly with NBN who were unable to indentify the specific issues raised.

"I encourage any businesses, schools, or anyone else with concerns to contact my office and we will look into the matter," he said.