The internet appeal is roaring along, but still has some way to go before becoming Australia's largest ever petition, which was submitted to federal parliament with 792,985 signatures in 2000 calling for an end to rising beer prices.
More than 140,000 people have so far signed the calling for a 'Fibre to the Home' broadband solution instead of the Coalition's proposed 'Fibre to the Node' plan.
Under Labor's plan, fast fibre networks would go directly to each home. The Coalition's plan would see fast fibre delivered to each street, terminating at a connection point known as a node. Existing copper wiring would then be used to cover the remaining distance from node to houses.
The Coalition claims its plan is cheaper than Labor's proposal, and would be faster to implement, but critics say it would deliver slower speeds and rely on the 90-year-old copper wire system which will eventually need replacing at a significant cost.
The petition, started by Nick Paine, cites bandwidth capacity, speed and cost as the biggest problems with the system proposed by Coalition communications spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull.
"While your government proudly boasts eventual download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of around a mere 5Mbps, this is unlikely to be sufficient for tomorrow’s technology centric society," he wrote.
"Secondly is the well-known fact that suggested speeds, in this instance 100Mbps/5Mbps, are more or less theoretical since actual speeds will be dependent upon the distance of an individual premises from the node."
"On the other hand a superior FTTH solution is able to alleviate all these shortcomings as well as provide a host of advantages," Mr Paine wrote.
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