Long queues during peak season can be a welcome sight for tourism operators but there is a downside, according to Airey's Inlet operator Regina Gleeson.
Ms Gleeson, who manages tours at Split Point Lighthouse, says her online booking and eftpos systems which run on mobile data, struggle when visitor numbers are at their highest.
"It works really well all year, but in peak times … we do experience some problems," Ms Gleeson said.
Areas with poor or absent mobile coverage during peak periods, also known as grey spots, have been recognised by Peri Urban Councils Victoria as an issue in places such as the Surf Coast west of Melbourne.
"People who come to visit [are] generally surprised when that sort of thing happens, and those systems crash or that they can't transfer money because they're not getting signal," Ms Gleeson said.
She said while cash was always an option, people didn't carry it very often.
She said her business sometimes lost customers because of the inconvenience or had to rely on people paying them later.
She said improvements needed to be made.
"It's not an unknown," she said.
"We know that the Great Ocean Road is very busy in summer, it's been the way forever."
Councils call for action
Peri Urban Councils Victoria chair Michael Leaney said his organisation was calling on the federal government to include regional grey spots in its mobile coverage audit.
He said increased population, weather and reliance on data were contributing to the issue.
"With so much [more] data being used up, it means that the systems are often out of date," Mr Leaney said.
"[There are] many holiday areas [where] … the mobile phone service and data is certainly able to cope.
"But in summer, when people move into these areas into their holiday homes, the whole system falls apart."
Mr Leaney said areas with steadily growing populations, such as West Gippsland, were also impacted by grey spots.
"While there is a mobile phone service, it's no longer able to cope with the number of people that are actually living and working in those areas," he said.
He said mobile towers needed to be upgraded to increase data capacity.
Finding solutions
Noojee Hotel owner Simon Duck said connectivity issues were so bad in his small Gippsland town he had invested in satellite internet for the pub.
He said he hadn't had any problems since adding the technology but understood it was not something that every business could afford to do.
"[It's] quite an expensive option, but that's the only option," he said.
He said the busy pub often struggled with eftpos failing due to low coverage.
"We [then] put an extra booster tower on top of the pub for mobile service at a cost of $2,000," he said.
"That helped somewhat, but just the growth in the town for tourism has just basically outgrown the tower capabilities."
Mr Duck there would usually be 200 to 300 people in town during the week but that grew to between 2,000 and 3,000 on the weekends.
He said people were flying blind without coverage.
"It's really quite a dangerous position to be in for residents of Noojee and tourists alike," he said.
"Noojee is getting used to the fact that tourism is going ahead so fast that governments [and mobile providers] can't keep up."
Upgrades underway
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said predictive maps produced by mobile suppliers might not always reflect what customers experienced on the ground.
Ms Rowland said a $20 million federal government audit would test mobile coverage and measure capacity in areas with patchy reception.
Telstra and Optus said in statements they recognised areas impacted by additional population growth could experience slow data speeds and mean additional coverage support was needed.
Telstra general manager Jenny Gray said a new 4G/5G mobile station would be built in Noojee and the company would investigate new opportunities to expand mobile coverage in Airey's Inlet.
An Optus spokesperson said a large portion of the company's planned sites had been scheduled to directly address the need.
