The rollout of Geraldton’s National Broadband Network is by most accounts a great thing.

It will bring significantly faster Internet speeds to homes and businesses for the Mid West.

Geraldton will be a first-release site for the fixed wireless service, and a second-release site for fibre to the home, and remote areas of the Mid West will be covered by NBNCo’s satellite service.

But not everyone is happy with the rollout.

As it stands now, 83 businesses in Narngulu will miss out on the benefits of Australia’s largest infrastructure project.

Centrals Earthmoving in Nargulu hosted an NBN information session on Thursday evening for local businesses.

It is one of the many businesses in the area struggling with poor Internet and telecommunications services, including a download speed as slow as 1.3Mbps.

Company managing director Craig Patterson said Centrals, like other businesses, moved to Narngulu industrial area to take advantage of space and to be close to businesses they work with.

Mr Patterson said a lot of his business relied on communications with remote contractors and his company now spends more than $10,000 per month on its phone bill.

His workers rely on mobile phones to receive emails and business-related files because Internet services cannot cope with the demand.

“Because we’re regionally-based we’ve got to communicate with all our sites. We have a lot of safety and financial information that has to be transferred backwards and forwards,” he said.

“We have nightmares trying to get information to and from our people out in the field.

“We can submit tenders electronically (but) we’ve got to allow at least an hour to be able to submit those things, because it will keep dropping out. It’s a fairly nerve-racking experience.”

Mr Patterson has been in discussions with NBNCo about improving Internet services in the area.

At the meeting NBNCo staff could not answer why Narngulu was excluded from the rollout, but staff said they would take the information back to head office to try to straighten it out.

Guardian Business contacted NBNCo on Friday and was told Narngulu would likely fall under the fixed wireless rollout, to be serviced by an antenna at the Geraldton Airport.

Confirmation of this is expected this week.

“The thing that has been disappointing previously with the NBN rollout plans was effectively when you looked at all the maps, they had all the householders but they missed Webberton and Narngulu,” Mr Patterson said.

“There’s a real question mark about the priorities, with major organisations like Iluka and Brookfield Rail in this area that employ a lot of people and employ suppliers and contractors like us, there’s some real economic drivers in this area that I think we need to look after.

“This is the sort of stuff that makes us extremely uncompetitive against people in Perth because you look unprofessional.

“Once we become uncompetitive, we’re not stupid, we up-stumps and move to where we can be competitive and unfortunately it keeps draining people out of regional areas.”

Some businesses in Narngulu have resolved to erecting antennas that pick up communications services from Mt Tarcoola and Seacreast.

The Mid West Chamber of Commerce and Industry has recently conducted a survey of the Narngulu area, identifying 83 businesses that struggled.

Chamber chief executive Bill Headley said the NBN meant businesses located on the outskirts and surrounding areas could benefit from high-speed broadband.

“Being one of the first-release sites in Australia, it gives our local businesses a distinct advantage to get involved in the emerging digital economy before others,” he said.

“Fixed-wireless will allow our local businesses to send and receive large files and conduct video conferences with colleagues and customers around the country.”