General News
25 November, 2023
They didn't like idea of faltering phones, internet
By CHRIS EARL WHEN the Optus mobile phone and broadband network crashed earlier this month, millions of people went barking mad that they had been disconnected. These people were customers afterall, right to vent frustration and annoyance that they...
By CHRIS EARL
WHEN the Optus mobile phone and broadband network crashed earlier this month, millions of people went barking mad that they had been disconnected.
These people were customers afterall, right to vent frustration and annoyance that they were helpless - unable to use their credit cards in the cashless society the big banks have imposed, isolated and unable to perform basic business functions, no connectivity let alone reception of a flickering type for up to eight or nine hours. Their world had stopped.
In all the annoyance, did those in the metropolis use phone quiet time to ponder what life is like in the country where the technological highway is always patchy and unreliable.
In Loddon communities, poor phone reception and equally bad internt connectivity still doesn’t seem to have improved despite so-called improvements over the years.
Last week, the Federal Parliament’s House Communications and the Arts Committee released its report after an inquiry into improving regional mobile phone infrastructure,
The report had a raft of recommendations:
developing and implementation of a practical universal service obligation for mobile telecommunications service providers;
facilitating roundtable meetings between NBN Co and mobile telecommunications industry representatives with Rewiring the Nation program planners to ascertain the potential to co-locate telecommunications infrastructure along renewable electricity transmission routes planned for regional and remote Australia;
establishing a working group involving state and territory governments, emergency services agencies, and mobile network operators to develop protocols for temporary roaming arrangements in declared disasters and emergencies;
reviewing the implications of non-use and area-wide licensing for the allocation, management, and use of spectrum for the provision of regional telecommunications services;
assessing the merits of including licence conditions on mobile network owners and other spectrum licensees of terms and conditions that mandate open access and active sharing solutions;
evaluating the objectives and guidelines of the Mobile Black Spot Program to ensure it remains fit for purpose;
establishing a trial program to fund mobile-carrier infrastructure in specific regional and remote geographical areas with a mandate for open access through active or passive sharing to any funded infrastructure;
developing a trial program to fund infrastructure to support multi-carrier mobile network sharing models at locations on major roads in regional and remote areas with limited or no network coverage;
leading development of a Regional Australia Mobile Telecommunications Strategy in consultation with state, territory and local governments to consider the trends and demands of regional growth and identify regions and growth corridors;
facilitating the harmonisation of planning and environmental regulations for new mobile infrastructure across regional, rural and remote Australia;
investigating and funding targeted, place-based solutions for providing reliable and secure access to telecommunications services in remote Indigenous communities, including, but not limited to deployment of wi-fi mesh networks or wi-fi hotspots, and use of Low Earth Orbit satellite services.
Fine recommendations they may be, but without genuine commitment of political parties on both sides of federal and state parliaments, they are just talk. Too often well-intentioned inquiries come up with solutions only to see reports mothballed by governments and buried by bureaucrats.
Communities across the Loddon Shire and all of rural Victoria, indeed Australia, need and deserve better telephone and broadband connectivity for our economic pulse to beat stronger.