Bernie Byrnes, a farmer from the southern tablelands of New South Wales, can tell when he is about to hit a mobile black spot on a highway.
“There’s spots on the side of the highway where reception falls out. And you can see it if you’re familiar with the vehicles that travel. People will pull over in the same spot to finish a conversation, finish a meeting. And you know that they’re familiar with the reception there,” he says.
Successive governments have plugged millions of taxpayer dollars into improving mobile coverage across Australia. But the perennial problem facing the country is its sheer size, compared against its population size, and whether it is cost-effective to build towers for places with low populations, or places people briefly travel through, such as highways.
The universal outdoor mobile obligation, to be introduced by the Labor government as legislation if it wins the next election, would expand existing obligations for triple zero access across the nation to include outdoor voice and SMS coverage, and also aim to improve the availability of mobile services during disasters and power outages.
The arrival of new satellite services could help fill the gap.
New technology, an old problem
Low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites fly between 500 and 2,000 kilometres above sea level, and rotate the Earth multiple times a day.
While the world’s craving for a constant connection has led to these technologies being developed and used globally, the proliferation of a growing number of smaller satellites and service providers has caused concern among astronomers, around issues such as light pollution and space junk.
But they are quickly filling the gap in telecommunications services for remote places where it is too cost-prohibitive to roll out fixed networks or mobile towers, and offer better quality service than geostationary satellites such as the National Broadband Network’s (NBN) Sky Muster satellites.
NBN Co is in the advanced stages of selecting an LEO provider to eventually replace the ageing satellite service in operation now – but meanwhile, more than 200,000 people in Australia have signed up to Elon Musk’s Starlink service as an alternative.
From fixed to phone
Satellite services have initially been limited to fixed services. But advances in the technology are shifting, allowing people to have direct-to-device access to satellite connections. This means that – provided the person is standing outside – they could access satellite on their mobile phone for texting and calls.
In the recent Los Angeles wildfires, T-Mobile used its direct-to-device service in partnership with Starlink to allow customers using existing 4G handsets to make calls and send text messages despite traditional mobile network outages.
The Albanese government is banking on this advancement to plug black spots across Australia and make networks more resilient in the event of power outages or natural disasters.
Scant detail – and the Elon factor
There is scant detail on how much it would cost. Officials in Senate estimates hearings last week could not put a price tag on the new universal outdoor mobile obligation, saying cost was “a matter for future budget consideration by government”. Current funding for the existing universal service obligations is $270m a year.
The government plans to introduce legislation in 2025 after consultation – putting the timeline beyond the next election – and it would not be in place until late 2027.
It has flagged the policy needs to include support for “public interest objectives and competition outcomes”.
Competition is a major concern. The only commercial LEO operator in Australia right now is Starlink. While others, such as Amazon’s Project Kuiper, are planned for Australia, concerns were raised in Senate estimates by the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young as to whether sovereign risk analysis had been done.
“If Starlink is the only company, US-owned, what does that mean if somebody – Elon Musk, somebody else, I don’t know – decides that it’s not a service to be offered to Australia?” Hanson-Young asked.
James Chisholm, the infrastructure department deputy secretary, said extensive analysis had been conducted, and that despite Starlink playing an important role, the policy “is sending a clear signal” on welcoming other entrants into the market.
‘Anything will help’
David Howell, a resident of Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains in NSW, says he estimates about 50% of the approximately 70 properties in his town do not get mobile coverage at home.
“Any improvement we can get in mobile reception would be fantastic,” he says. What’s especially important, he adds, is for the community to be able to contact one another during emergency situations, when mobile towers may be down and landlines aren’t working.
“Anything will help because it’s very important we be able to contact the community [about] what’s going on, and whether to evacuate or not.”
Byrnes says improved coverage would give peace of mind, and make work more efficient.
“The more that you can rely on technology, the more efficient that you can become,” he says. “If we’re waiting for a carrier to come and pick up stock or wool or whatever, if they’re running late, we rely on them to give us a heads up, or vice versa.
“If we’re sitting around, it’s dead time for everyone. And so if we’ve got reliable phone reception, we can let people know.”
