Phone coverage challenges getting carefully investigated

At a regional mobile infrastructure inquiry at the House of Assembly in the South Australian Parliament House on Monday morning, submissions were made by local councils, the Outback Communities Authorities and Grain Producers SA among others, to find collaborative ways to fund mobile phone infrastructure services across regional and remote Australia.

Committee chair and federal member for Lyons Brian Mitchell said the inquiry provided great insights from people in city and country Australia and highlighted the benefits the funding the federal government put into telecommunications.

"Our inquiry is keen to find ways to maximise the benefits of the considerable investments the federal government makes into telecommunications, particularly focused on infrastructure," he said.

Mr Mitchell said except for the NBN, telecommunications in Australia was completely privatised and if companies couldn't make money in delivering service to an area, then it wouldn't offer the service.

"Telecommunications has been treated as a commodity and not an essential service," he said.

"Our inquiry is about looking into how we can deliver better outcomes for people and more bang for the taxpayer buck, because no matter where you live in Australia you deserve decent telecommunications."

GPSA chief executive officer Brad Perry said a big concern of grain producers was whether they would be able to access the 4G or 5G networks after the switch off of 3G networks.

"We've spoken to some of the telecommunication providers and they've reassured us, you'll just need upgrades in technology, you're not going to suddenly drop right out off the face of the earth from a mobile phone reception signal," he said.

"There's still those concerns out there in the ground producing communities and regional communities."

The importance of access to emergency services was also key consideration at the inquiry, Mr Perry said.

"If you don't have reliable mobile reception and you've got a worker that gets injured, it's really hard for them to seek immediate help for that injury if there's no mobile coverage," he said.

"I don't know if there's an answer to that either, because there's not that commercial incentive to address those safety aspects, which makes it really challenging to fix that gap."

OCA's Jan Ferguson said phone connectivity had come a long way in rural SA since she attended an inquiry on phone coverage 10 years ago, when there was no mobile coverage and concerns about NBN.

But she said there were effects on tourism and other industries in the north of the state from lack of service.

Federal Member for Barker Tony Pasin said quality phone coverage was a necessary business tool and one a number of people from within Barker faced challenges receiving.

"There are 399 mobile blackspots in Barker alone and I don't think I go through a day, without a constituent speaking to me over the phone or in person that they pay for a mobile phone service they're unable to use for much of time," he said.

Mr Pasin said he met with Telstra regional general manager of Australia, Tas and SA, Michael Patterson on Tuesday to express some of his concerns.

"Telstra told me they would undertake an investigation to determine whether there was a factor creating an endemic failure or whether it was issues around contestability etc," he said.

Mr Patterson said mobile coverage and blackspot problems could be caused by different reasons and encouraged anyone having trouble to use the free setting wi-fi calling on most popular mobile phones that allowed people's mobile to use a Wi-Fi network to make and receive mobile calls.

"These include the type of device being used, the distance from a tower, terrain (hills and valleys), tall trees and infrastructure," he said.

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Telstra plans to switch off the 3G network in June 2024 and Mr Patterson said the shift to 4G and 5G networks would lead to faster coverage.

"Once we've closed our 3G network we will repurpose the spectrum previously used for 3G to support the expansion of 5G, which will see regional and rural communities receive greater 5G coverage faster," he said.

"We know farmers may use sensor devices for tasks such as remote monitoring of water tanks and these may still be running on 3G, so we encourage farmers over the next 12 months to check what they are using and upgrade if necessary."

Mr Patterson said customers should have multiple forms of connectivity available in the case of an emergency.

"If a bushfire damages the local mobile base station and residents have abandoned having a landline or an NBN internet service, then they could be isolated as they have no alternative forms of communication," he said.

An Optus spokesperson said Optus was committed to providing their customers with the latest technology and accommodation for the demand for 4G and 5G networks, with capacity to increase from September, 2024, which will mean 3G services are no longer available.

"This is the second phrase of our 3G network refresh, as we continue to prioritise the deployment of high-speed, high-capacity networks that can support the increasing digital demands of our customers," he said.

"Nearly all the phones on the market are 4G compatible, so unless a customer's device is 3G only, they won't have to do anything if 3G is shutdown in their area."

In the case of an emergency the Optus spokesperson said any network would pick up the 000 call.

"If a Telstra tower were impacted by a bushfire but the Optus network in the area wasn't, the Optus network would pick up any customers' emergency call," the spokesperson said.

The Optus spokesperson said they had been building a number of new phone towers, with 28 new sites in the Murray Mallee area alone since 2016.

Renmark Paringa Council mayor Peter Hunter said the council had requested Optus and Telstra test the service quality and reception in his region after concerns were raised from a number of residents.

He is hopeful that a response is coming after testing from Telstra and he will be following up with Optus.