In 2022, I carried out a mobile performance study, driving across four states to check mobile data speeds. Our research focused on the mid-west of Western Australia and separately eight towns with large First Nations populations located in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia. We found that some rural areas experienced mobile data speeds 90% lower than urban areas.
This will not be news to people in the bush: the digital divide in rural areas is now wider than ever before. Urban areas are getting 5G while many rural communities, farmers and small businesses continue to experience very poor or no mobile coverage.
On Wednesday, the Senate rural and regional affairs and transport references committee released a report on the shutdown of the 3G mobile network. It called for industry and government support for mobile customers that have lost coverage, for mobile phone services via low earth orbit satellites to be fast-tracked and for performance data to be collected in more areas, including off-road areas and private land.
Collecting mobile performance data is vital if rural telecommunications coverage and performance are to be improved. Some of this work is being done, with the launch of a three-year national audit of mobile coverage in May 2024, which aimed to better identify mobile coverage black spots across Australia.
The audit involves drive testing around 180,000km of regional and rural roads every year for three years and placing mobile monitoring devices in up to 77 locations, mostly post offices, across all states and territories.
It is a positive response to ongoing concerns about poor mobile coverage and network performance in rural areas. But the Senate report highlighted the need for the mobile audit to be more fit for purpose.
Identifying black spots is one issue that needs to be resolved, but there is a more pressing issue that needs to be fixed. Telecommunications is an essential service and businesses operating in rural areas rely heavily on network connectivity.
Recently, I proposed to government that it fund the ongoing research and development of low-cost, solar-powered Internet of Things (IoT) devices to enable mobile performance data to be collected right across the nation.
The devices could be deployed near every base station and would also be able to monitor low earth orbit satellite performance. This will become an important requirement for rural consumers and business in coming years.
Implementing a permanent mobile performance monitoring solution would benefit both consumers and the telecommunications industry through increased productivity and major savings from not have to deal with poor mobile performance.
There is also an urgent need for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to be given new powers to set and enforce minimum performance standards. The spate of major telecommunications network outages, high volumes of consumer complaints and loss of potential productivity will continue without telecommunications policy reforms.
The Senate report concluded that the committee was “convinced that the shutdown of Australia’s 3G mobile network can, and should, have been managed better”. It continued that“the testimony of many rural Australians that have lost mobile phone access, despite the promises that were made, proves this point”.
If the government had not intervened there could have been dangers to public safety, business continuity and the provision of essential services.
The Labor government this week also announced an election policy for a new mobile obligation that would expand access to the triple zero service almost everywhere across Australia. This policy promises a major enhancement to safety for everyone, especially during emergencies and natural disasters.
The direct-to-device technology was utilised during the California wildfires by about 198,000 T-Mobile users who sent or received around 96,000 SMS messages and transmitted 21 wireless alerts over Starlink, including to the US emergency number 911.
Under the proposal, mobile carriers would be required to provide nationwide access to mobile voice and SMS text services by the end of 2027 using the new direct-to-device technology that enables mobiles to connect directly to low earth orbit satellites.
The low earth orbit direct-to-device mobile connectivity should become available later this year, and mobile data should become available at some point in two to three years.
Consumers should anticipate that there will be an additional cost to connect to low earth orbit satellites, and as with all new technologies, the cost is likely to be substantial whilst performance could be marginal.
None of the changes announced this week negate the need for major policy reforms to improve rural telecommunications. The lack of minimum performance standards and current legislation make if difficult to ensure that telecommunications carriers provide a service that meets consumer demands.
Consumers and businesses struggle to claim losses caused by telecommunications outages. Despite the recent spate of preventable telecommunications outages – from the 2023 Optus outage to a technical issue in Telstra connections to triple zero – telecommunications carriers have received what, to a business of that size, appears to be nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
