- Community and industry views on regional telecommunications
Overview
4.1The chapter considers additional issues relating to the adoption of multi-carrier models in regional Australia, and about the state of regional telecommunications more broadly.
4.2The Committee received evidence about the impact of planning regulations on infrastructure rollouts, and the need to harmonise Australia’s planning processes across all levels of government. It also took evidence regarding the charges tower companies were paying to lease Crown land and how much some government agencies were charging in additional rent or co-user fees when towers hosted additional MNOs, as encouraged by governments.
4.3The chapter outlines evidence revealing a broad range of issues and frustrations related to mobile coverage in regional Australia—in locations ranging from the corridors of major highways, to farms, tourist venues and mine sites. The Committee also took evidence on the potential for telecommunications services to utilise extensive energy infrastructure assets planned for regional Australia.
Regional communities can benefit from infrastructure sharing
4.4Mr Nathan Paine, Chief Executive Officer, South Australian Forest Products Association (SAFPA), believed it’s the ‘co-investment model which actually changes it up rather than it being just state government, federal government and a telco’:
It's a model that I understand has been rolled out in Tasmania on King Island relatively successfully and one which has shown that there has been a corresponding growth in population as a consequence. … these days we are so connected to our devices and our data, people are just not going to move somewhere where they are not … able to watch Netflix, for example, or they're not … able to call their families. The more we can increase that connectivity, the greater we can actually encourage, I guess, people to look at regional locations as a genuine opportunity to live, work and play.
4.5Ms Caroline Rhodes, Chief Executive Officer, Primary Producers SA (PPSA), highlighted the need to encourage the private sector to co-invest in mobile infrastructure:
…we make the point that there is a need to ensure that the non-government sector is incentivised and delivers that commercial return on that investment. Obviously, attached to that is innovations in multicarrier infrastructure sharing and the sharing of passive infrastructure, such as the physical towers, with also active components, being the transmitters being carrier specific.
4.6Mr Brad Perry, Chief Executive Officer of Grain Producers SA, acknowledged that when a telecommunications company was co-investing with government, ‘it comes down to how many customers they can get on that coverage.’ In that light, Mr Paine said the SAFPA was happy to work with MNOs such as Telstra to identify new opportunities.
4.7Ms Rhodes noted the growing interest in innovations other than mobile telecommunication towers:
Regional South Australians have shared positive experiences with fixed and mobile boosters designed to amplify coverage and effectively extend that range to either a building or a moving vehicle. But the problem is the prohibitive costs associated with the purchase and installation of that. Potentially, we're looking at incentives again and programs to address that through making access to that technology cheaper.
4.8Infrastructure Logic Pty Ltd (trading as OneWiFi & Infrastructure (OneWiFi)) is a licensed carrier and a fully independent neutral host provider, that noted its emphatic support for ‘telecommunication infrastructure and network sharing, particularly in regional Australia due to the markedly different economic/business justification factors’.
4.9OneWiFi outlined why this model provides for the most efficient use of capital on an equitable basis, for all industry participants, to provide expanded regional mobile coverage at the lowest cost:
OneWiFi believes the new mobile coverage and in-fill coverage should be based on shared network principles, notably active network sharing and of equal importance, facilitated by fully independent Neutral Host providers without ownership encumbrance from mobile carriers, to further improve capital efficiency and deliver telecommunication services to consumers and other industry participants on an equitable basis.
4.10The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) said the high cost of infrastructure deployment in rural and remote areas compared to metropolitan areas reduces commercial incentives to deploy, often leaving Telstra as the only provider:
Telstra currently has the most mobile sites,covering 1 million square kilometres more than any other mobile network.Yet Telstra currently has the lowest percentage of co-location amongst Mobile Network Operators,with only 35 per cent of its sites co-located with another MNO.
4.11First Nations Media Australia (FNMA), which is the peak body for the First Nations media and communications industry, supported appropriate co-location models for sharing mobile infrastructure by multiple mobile carriers. FNMA hoped efforts to extend mobile coverage throughout regional and remote Australia will ‘increase the digital participation and social inclusion of First Nations peoples living in these areas’.
4.12FNMA welcomed the cost efficiencies provided by co-location when mobile carriers share elements of their passive infrastructure (such as towers and their facilities including power, access tracks and cabinets) with other carriers, rather than multiple providers installing their own separate equipment in similar locations.
4.13Mr Brett Loughlin AFSM, Chief Officer, South Australian Country Fire Service (CFS) said the CFS supported increased multi-carrier requirements in regional SA as it would ‘ensure the sharing of infrastructure is maximised, with design and structural measures suited to additional co-location by multiple providers’:
This will address the growth in telecommunication devices such as mobile phones, computer-based traffic and things like automatic vehicle location systems, et cetera. It will also help create more redundancy in the system. This would also certainly support further innovations and telemetry such as increasing machine-to-machine connections that form part of the Internet of Things that we are all grappling with.
4.14FNMA recommended the Australian government explore the use of ‘legacy and existing and future passive infrastructure to support co-location models as a way of generating maximum public value from new mobile infrastructure rollouts, especially for First Nations people in highly isolated and sparsely populated areas’:
The high cost of infrastructure for a mobile tower and exchange (> $1 million) requires a sufficient population to provide a business case to install and operate the service. However, the use of existing towers to support microwave backhaul could provide a more affordable way of extending mobile coverage to smaller remote communities and settlements where it has previously been too costly to provide internet access.
4.15According to the FNMA, telecommunications and broadcasting legacy infrastructure, such as the towers from Telstra’s decommissioned High Capacity Radio Concentrator (HCRC) network, could be utilised to host co-location arrangements for multiple carriers. The HCRC network of towers was installed during the early 2000s and has reached end of life. FNMA highlighted another advantage of using ‘pre‑existing and legacy telecommunications infrastructure is to facilitate high-speed microwave backhaul arrangements, as mobile carriers transition their networks from 3G radio access to 4G access technologies’.
4.16ACCAN found the level of co-location between the MNOs decreases as regional areas become less populous, and competing MNOs face fewer options for accessing tower operators. Their submission noted: ‘Carriers seeking access to customers in the area may only have the choice to contract with one tower operator or to build their own facilities’.
Local government and planning processes
4.17The President of the Western Australian Local Government Association (WALGA), Ms Chappel, doubted any regional local councils would have the resources to co-invest in infrastructure with MNOs and mobile tower companies.
Our contribution would be knowing our community and being part of the mapping process. You would be well aware that many local governments, and more rural local governments, are fairly reliant on federal assistance grants. Unless the federal assistance grants are increased to one per cent, I can't see us being able to contribute to the cost of a mobile phone tower.
4.18Mrs Lefroy of the GrainGrowers Ltd agreed councils such as her Shire of Moora may have more resources if federal assistance grants were increased to one per cent, but it was the council’s understanding of local needs that would be more valuable.
The role of local governments is understanding their community, understanding what a locally based solution might look like, and the opportunities that can be provided by a solution. Sometimes we become so prescriptive in those funding guidelines that we eliminate anything that's a bit left of centre...
4.19Mrs Lefroy explained the differences between the two different types of funding local government may receive and how it may impact on the community.
You've got your tied funding and your untied funding. Local governments historically have used their untied funding really well, really thoughtfully, and with a view to the longer term. Local governments do have an advantage in that we're not caught up in a short cycle; we have a much longer term view of what is a sustainable, thriving community, how that looks and what we need to do to get there.
4.20Mr Sam Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, District Council of Mount Remarkable in South Australia, said better communication between the federal government, MNOs and local governments regarding infrastructure rollout strategy might see more public land made available, reducing the need for access to relatively expensive private land:
As local government entities that cover the vast area in question, we are typically custodians of significant parcels of land which are often vacant and generally not doing much. … how does local government partner with the federal government in some capacity in terms of identifying where infrastructure can be built? This therefore gives the ability for the federal government to negotiate directly with the local government entity. No commercial arrangements or very limited commercial arrangements would need to be entered into or discussed.
4.21Mr Paine of the South Australian Forest Products Association said most local governments in rural South Australia recognised the importance of connectivity. With government resourcing they could better coordinate infrastructure needs with adjoining councils and help fund required towers.
Seven local governments are involved in connecting up the south-east. … Individually, they might be able to secure one or two towers, but together they can help shape a regional outcome which delivers not just for the residential ratepayers and the tourism providers and industry but for the entire region…
Streamlining local and state government land planning processes for towers
4.22Amplitel CEO, Mr Jon Lipton, said the ‘harmonisation of state and territory planning and development processes would improve the efficiency and could reduce the cost of developing telecommunication infrastructure’ and praised the reforms of the Victorian Government:
Currently, the planning and development approval process for mobile infrastructure varies significantly between states and territories. This adds a lot of uncertainty in our planning of new infrastructure, and it can increase the cost of site selection, acquisition and planning processes during the development phase. … We've seen tangible commercial benefits come out of the recent Victorian planning amendments, which have streamlined planning requirements for telecommunication facilities in Victoria.
4.23Ms Hyland, CEO of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association Ltd (AMTA), said complexities were impacting project delivery:
This involves legislation, regulation and bylaws across the Commonwealth, eight states and territories and 537 councils. That's three tiers of government to navigate… At present, the average timeframes for securing development approval for a new telecommunications facility is approximately 200 days, or about six and a half months. … Councils often do not meet statutory timeframes for assessing development applications due to the complexity as well as under resourcing in council planning departments.
4.24The AMTA recommended three key proposals to help speed up delivery of new mobile infrastructure: change the Commonwealth Telecommunications Act to allow faster deployment of assets in regional Australia; encourage states and territories to streamline processes to minimise approval delays; and improve access to Crown land on a fair rental basis.
4.25Mr Matthew Evans, Consultant, Mobile Carriers Forum, AMTA noted a 2016 Federal Court decision which found ‘[the Queensland Government] did discriminate by imposing higher rents for commercial carriers that lease Crown land for the provision, relay and transmission of telephone, television, radio and other electronic communication services’:
We are of the view that crown land agencies in states do discriminate against mobile carriers and charge mobile carriers a different rate per square metre than what they would charge other users of crown land, because there's a perception that we're rich.
4.26Indara’s Mr Horley shared some rental costs companies paid:
On average, we pay over $20,000 per site for the land that we use at the base of a tower. On the modelling we used here for remote areas, we worked on about $7,000 or $8,000 of rent because the pricing is lower in rural and regional areas compared to in metro areas or on rooftops.
4.27Mr Horley said building mobile infrastructure on government land was generally more difficult and costly than locating towers on farmer owned rural land, with ‘a lot of issues when trying to put infrastructure into national parks’:
Generally, on Crown land and state government land, they like to charge a fee to every single user who comes to the site. So, instead of just saying, 'Okay, we'll charge you $10,000 to put your tower there,' every time someone comes, it's another $10,000, another $10,000. This raises the costs of providing the service, especially when these areas are already marginal for the carrier.
4.28Optus noted in its submission that ‘not all levels of government are working towards the same objective of providing services to regional Australia and reducing the digital divide’. It said ‘there is a role for the Commonwealth to take the lead and provide national leadership’.
4.29Optus recommended the Australian Government investigate the extent to which the Commonwealth can adopt a ‘uniform national approach to land access, rents and approvals which is consistent with the mandate to improve regional communications’:
This could include:
- Federal Government guidance to states and councils on uniform rental approaches
- Consideration of a model leasing agreement for all councils; and
- A consistent approach to rental charges, including a requirement to set rents as a specific yield on unimproved land value.
- Amplitel’s Mr Lipton said the behaviour of some government landlords was a disincentive to co-location and multi-tenancy:
As we bring on more tenants, without any corresponding benefits these government landlords will charge our customers an additional rental … for the land we're already leasing. This approach increases the costs to our customers directly and reduces the feasibility of co-location and multitenancy.
Harmonisation of planning provisions
4.31Dr Adam Mowlam, Manager, Smart City, City of Greater Geelong, said the Victorian Government’s streamlining of mobile infrastructure planning provisions in 2022 had led to more MNO and tower company interest in site development. Dr Mowlam said: ‘Amendment VC226 was put through in November. That was the first time in 20 years it was amended’.
4.32Mr Andrew Briggs, Telstra Principal of Networks, said local and state governments should talk to each other more and seek more regulatory harmony across jurisdictions:
…there are a lot of opportunities for different groups to learn from each other in trying to get some sort of consistency across the state. Some states could also learn from other states in how to do that planning process.
4.33Mr Briggs said outcomes were generally better when state governments, rather than local governments, took the lead.
We see a lot of areas where we are able to get planning applications through reasonably quickly and the cost is low, then other areas where the cost is high. … If it's at the local government level, it's far harder to solve because there are so many parties that you're dealing with...
4.34Mr Bill Gallagher, Telstra Regulatory Affairs and Legal Services Executive, said streamlining planning processes would help ‘maximise bang for buck’ of government-funded black spot programs, and, ‘If you get a harmonised approach across the country, in terms of planning processes for mobile deployment, that would bring down costs, which means the funding you have would go further’.
4.35Mr Lipton recommended state and federal governments investigate whether regulations for ‘required lot size for telecommunication towers should be reconsidered’ to help lower costs for regional mobile infrastructure:
… minimum lot sizes mean that we typically need to purchase close to 1,000 square metres when we only need that 80 to 100. These requirements are inefficient and unnecessarily increase our costs in developing and maintaining our infrastructure.
That gives enough physical space to accommodate multiple customers, electronics, their huts and the tower and the footing.
4.36Mr Sheridan shared Optus’ experience of lead times to deploy facilities, different land use planning laws and layers of government. He suggested the Committee consider:
… whether there are opportunities to provide some sort of streamlined arrangements for the deployment of what is now critical infrastructure, as essential as water or electricity.
4.37Mrs Rebecca Treloar, Senior Manager, Government Affairs, Optus, said dealing with local and state government agencies was difficult and time-consuming, even when projects had been federally supported. Mrs Treloar said the Victorian Government’s Connecting Victoria program would help fast-track better mobile and broadband connectivity across the state, including 700 projects in regional areas. Mrs Treloar also emphasised planning uniformity across jurisdictions would ‘absolutely see the speeding up of the process’:
Sometimes just trying to get a lease for a bit of land to build a site can extend to a three-year negotiation with a landlord. That goes from everything from private landlords to corporates, and it happens to Telstra as well. … They see a telco and they see dollar signs .... The Victorian government have done a little bit of work on that with their Connecting Victoria mobile program, where they have kind of blanketed the approach for their state agencies to try and help us get our upgrades and everything done in a faster manner.
In some cases, for landlords who are private citizens, the local council might then increase their rates if they build a tower on their property, so then that person doesn't want to have it.
4.38Mr Vin Mullins, Group Executive Government, Partner, Engineering and Infrastructure, Field Solutions Group (FSG), said planning delays varied from state to state. FSG enjoyed a more cooperative relationship with local councils.
…we're tending to roll out six, seven or eight towers in one local government area, so we're dealing heavily with them. We're finding that relationship is pretty good and we're not getting held up a lot on the local government aspect.
4.39From FSG’s own experience, Mr Mullins recommended the Australian Government take a role in the harmonisation of planning regulations for mobile infrastructure:
Definitely the harmonisation of planning guidelines for regional areas. It's got to be easier. It shouldn't be taking me 18 months to roll out in Thargomindah.
4.40Mr Sam Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, District Council of Mount Remarkable, cautioned against an expectation that streamlining state and territory planning laws for mobile infrastructure would reap big benefits. Mr Johnson said in South Australia, when significant investments are $5 million and above, the state government reserves the authority to take over that decision and the regulation process.
Unfortunately, here in South Australia, we have an incredibly centralised planning system which has been implemented by the state government whereby the planning code … does centralise all the decision‑making. So typically in local government in South Australia, particularly in regional areas, we actually don't get a say in terms of zoning and significant infrastructure.
Gaining community and local council support for erecting new towers
4.41Ms Chappel of WALGA would like to see MNOs and mobile infrastructure companies work more closely with local councils when planning new towers, including under the Mobile Black Spot Program (MBSP).
…one of the bugbears is that, quite often, when the final tower comes to be put in, it might get moved 5 km because that's where the power access is. That 5km can make a significant difference as to how much coverage and how many people benefit from it. They are little things which have a major impact.
4.42Mrs Lefroy of GrainGrowers Ltd said the Regional Connectivity Program was paying dividends in rural WA.
For the second round, our Shire of Moora collaborated with a private business, Field Solutions Group. We accessed funding to get 13 towers across our area. That made a massive difference. It was about having that collaboration between the federal government, private industry and local government.
4.43Mr Lipton said irrespective of planning regimes, Amplitel undertook community consultation before settling on a final location:
In Queenscliff, in Victoria, for example, we've worked with the local councils. There were a number of objections to the first location. We worked with them and then we moved the site to a proposed location on the council land.
So, we do try to work with our local communities where we can. But … not everyone is always comfortable with a tower. However, most people want the service.
4.44Mr James Toole, Telstra Head of Government Relations, said Telstra deployed teams to new site locations for consultation. Similarly, Mr Sheridan of Optus said he did not want ‘carte blanche to just march in’ but the importance of connection to infrastructure had to be better understood:
I think the importance here is to emphasise that we are meeting a community need for critical services and they should be treated that way, ensuring that there's a proper emphasis on that as we go through those processes and trying to provide some uniformity...
Experiences and views in regional and remote areas
4.45The Committee received a wide range of evidence from regional and remote communities about their experiences with telecommunications. This evidence is outlined below.
Regional and remote Western Australia
4.46Mr David De Garis, Government Relations and Communications Manager, Australian Hotels Association (AHA (WA)), said poor mobile coverage wasn’t just in remote WA and that poor coverage made tourists apprehensive. Mr De Garis said
Guests are apprehensive or reluctant to travel between towns where they know there is no coverage; that's more pronounced for out-of-staters and international guests, who are reluctant to take a journey where they know that they can't have mobile coverage.
4.47Mr De Garis said poor coverage made simple business transactions and government service delivery difficult and impacted on regional WA’s ability to attract workers.
With digital security, two-factor authentication is increasingly common, particularly for government services: for example, lodging claims with government or tax or superannuation.
4.48Mrs Steph Underwood, Acting Executive Director, Strategy and Engagement, Tourism Western Australia, said reliable mobile coverage was needed to market WA to global consumers.
There's no way to talk to them without the internet, as well as for experience and payment systems. We have had cases of tourist towns being full; regional mobile coverage has gone down and no-one can purchase food or tours. They don't have cash. They're not Australians. They don't have facilities in their hotel to travel with cash, so there's a big economic loss.
4.49Mrs Lefroy said reliable mobile connectivity was needed to attract backpackers to work on the farm, 35km east of Moora, WA.
The key bit to that is having telecommunications to the farm gate to a point such that farmers and private groups feel confident in investing in their end of the bargain. That's the piece that is missing at the moment.
4.50Mrs Alison Andersson, ICT Operations Manager, Western Australia Country Health Services (WACHS) said WACHS faced similar challenges, delivering medical services to places without adequate mobile coverage.
In the past we have struggled heavily to get nurses and doctors to go to the regions because they are isolated; and because we can't deliver internet or mobile devices. We do have a problem with the safety of our staff as they move around the state.
4.51WACHS says innovations such as Telehealth are impacted by poor connectivity, both in remote communities and in hospitals.
We are trying to lead Australia in this place, but we are now struggling with the fact that we have major black spots everywhere in WA. As reliance on mobile devices increases, that becomes even harder for us.
We also have major problems inside our hospital systems, where we can't even get coverage in the hospitals themselves and have to pay lots of money to try to put in our own repeaters to try to get enough coverage to be able to deliver a service within a hospital.
4.52Mr McCabe of Western Australia’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development acknowledged for-profit telecommunications companies are reluctant to deliver services to remote areas due to the commercial risk. Mr McCabe said the WA government was prioritising investment in new and improved regional mobile coverage and that connectivity did not meet community expectations in the regions:
Most complaints relate to interrupted connections and drop-outs, patchy coverage on regional roads, variable network performance in fringe coverage areas, loss of mobile service during power outages, and technology limitations, particularly lack of indoor coverage. More network capacity is needed to meet rising everyday demand and seasonal peaks.
4.53Mr McCabe said high infrastructure costs were also a barrier to coverage expansion, linked to remoteness and limited access to fibre and power:
Remoteness impacts the time frames and approval processes for site acquisition; deployment costs for transport, labour and equipment, as well as ongoing site maintenance; the need for solar or hybrid power systems where there is no access to mains power; and the requirements for higher cost radio and satellite transmission systems in the absence of fibre back-up. These risks disadvantage Western Australia in competition grant processes against other jurisdictions.
4.54Ms Julie Broad, CEO Bunbury Geographe Chamber of Commerce, said members had moved to different providers and added backup services such as boosters and satellite to address connectivity shortcomings.
The expenses incurred to improve telecommunications services ranged from $1,000 to $100,000, depending on the solution employed.
Western Australia’s iron ore mining industry
4.55Mr Jason Carvey, General Manager, Global Technology and Automation, Fortescue Metals Group Ltd, said a lack of carrier diversity had resulted in the company investing in its own infrastructure.
We run nearly 200 autonomous trucks across the Pilbara every day. Communications and challenges like lack of carrier diversity really hurt the organisation going forward. When we incur outages with those fibre connections, production stops. It impacts our people and the local communities around us.
4.56He said the investment was of some benefit to nearby communities but most particularly its own workforce:
On our current infrastructure, we built our fibre network down from Port Hedland into our three hubs. We built our own towers and infrastructure for that. Through a partnership with Telstra we put up mobile services. … We can't reach every community within the Pilbara. Where our mine sites are and for the immediate vicinities around there we can provide good coverage. It is important to note that, as well as the local communities, we are trying to house and camp and keep healthy a large workforce in a competitive market.
4.57Nokia Chief Technology Officer, Dr Robert Joyce, said establishing robust private networks made sense for corporations, but whether the same model would work for smaller remote communities remained to be seen:
These large farms build their own private 5G networks. The goldmines of Australia, Rio Tinto and BHP, have Nokia private 5G networks now deployed in order to control their driverless Caterpillar trucks on the mines and to remove some of the safety issues that were experienced on the mines.
Northern Territory
4.58Mr Chris Hosking, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Department of Corporate and Digital Development, Northern Territory Government, said connectivity was as essential to modern life as running water and electricity, and that it was ultimately a federal responsibility in the wake of commercial reluctance to invest.
The Territory has some of the worst outcomes in terms of Aboriginal health, morbidity and incidence of chronic preventable diseases. It's quite a different demographic by comparison to any other state in Australia…We really are a sparse, very broad geographic span with very few people.
The big telcos—and particularly here in the Territory, where we are beholden to one telco, simply, it's not commercial for Vodafone, Optus and others to trench fibre into some of these places. Telstra don't have fibre in a lot of these places, dating right back to when they were a government-owned monopoly provider. So we can't rely on competition to change that for the Northern Territory.
4.59The NT Government had been co-investing for 14 years, and ‘fibre-optic in the ground is the gold standard’, Mr Hosking said:
… It might be connecting communities by putting up a mobile phone tower so they can all access on their device of choice, but you need to trench the fibre in there to put the tower up in the first place. So that has been fundamental; anything less that that is really not suitable for any large population base, and it gets congested very quickly.
4.60Mr Perrin of the Department of Corporate and Digital Development, Northern Territory Government, said connectivity solutions had to take into account the unique circumstances of remote Indigenous community life:
There's an assumption that people are able to establish long-term contracts with telecommunications providers, that they have regular power to their houses, that they have houses rather than dwellings and that they have infrastructure that's capable of supporting satellite dishes and those sorts of things.
4.61Mr Hosking said the Universal Service Obligation (USO) was a ‘very low bar to get over’ and was all-but redundant in the mobile age:
A public phone box in a bush community meets the USO. So the utility of a public phone these days is not perhaps nil but very close to nil. It's alright for a triple zero call, but after that you're out of luck.
4.62Mr Perrin urged the USO be updated to include mobile and broadband:
…it's probably the new universal service obligation, if you like, which is that, no matter where you live, you should have the same opportunities and the same access.
North-Eastern Victoria
4.63The Federal Member for Indi, Dr Helen Haines MP, submitted that 51 mobile towers had been secured since the establishment in 2013 of the Indi Telecommunications Advisory Group (ITAG), a consultative committee comprising the electorate's local governments, community members and regional stakeholders.
…ITAG does have sufficient information and knowledge regarding the experiences and shortfalls to a single carrier location…
4.64Dr Haines submitted that congestion, slow speeds and dropouts were common complaints to her electorate office and that better connectivity was crucial for regional communities for economic and social reasons, as well as public safety.
Considerable stretches of no service where the individual is with a provider that is not serviced in the area impacts negatively on the visitor experience and consequently, on the long-term destination brand credentials of North East Victoria.
Mansfield Shire Council
4.65Mansfield Shire Council’s Economic Development Officer, Derek Beautyman, said, via Dr Haines’ submission, that multi-carrier service was required:
In my experience as a local real estate agent since 2005, I would venture that 2 in 5 people visiting our area would enquire why their mobile phones would not work here. In some instances it simply led to people to give up and invest in areas that had better reception or at least their service provider.
We believe that the advantages in opening up the use of infrastructure to a wider number of providers are many.
District Council of Mount Remarkable
4.66Mr Sam Johnson, CEO, District Council of Mount Remarkable, said Kelly Engineering, a large business with historical ties to the region, had relocated some of its operations to Adelaide due to poor connectivity.
They're a large international agricultural manufacturer. …You're talking a second- and third-generation agricultural business who would love for their head office and corporate office to be based in Booleroo Centre, which logistically could actually work for them.
4.67Mr Johnson said ventures such as the Southern Flinders hiking and biking trail project were good for the region but visitors expected connectivity.
… the government's made a wonderful investment and commitment to spend $10 million building international hiking and biking trails. The entirety of that project has absolutely no phone coverage at all—no wi-fi, no Optus, no Telstra, no nothing.
Alice Springs and remote Outback communities
4.68Alice Springs Mayor, Matt Paterson, said connectivity could be the ‘difference between life and death’:
…in the cities communications can mean running a better business or having faster internet so you can have Netflix at a quicker speed. … [I was] driving back from a remote community when I crashed my car. … I spent seven hours on the bitumen in the middle of summer waiting for someone to drive past me to pick me up. … there are instances where people are not as lucky.
… we welcome the Regional Connectivity Program, the announcement from the minister for $10 million, as part of the $250 million package. But I think it is a no-brainer for us about the multi-purpose carriers…
4.69Outback Communities Authority Presiding Member, Jan Ferguson OAM, said all 23 OCA communities have mobile coverage of some sort, and 12 have both Telstra and Optus coverage.
Most people who live remotely use Telstra as their carrier because it has more universal coverage than Optus. The 4G coverage that does exist is usually a small cell with under a 2 km range around the area where people live. One of the biggest issues we're experiencing is that our tourism sector is seasonal. … The small cell installations don't cope with that level of coverage at all. With increasing dependency on all types of technology for service delivery, particularly from the federal government, it becomes very difficult for some of our communities to access the likes of Centrelink and so forth by any form of electronic means.
4.70Tourism Central Australia CEO, Danial Rochford, said wi-fi mesh networks had their place in remote, discrete communities but transport infrastructure should be better utilised for broader community application:
…the wi-fi mesh is a really good model for communities, but we also can't lose sight of that road connectivity. That is certainly very valuable from a tourism perspective, because those visitors may not be connected into those potential meshes.
Mobile coverage along regional highways and other blackspots
4.71Western Australian farmer Mrs Judith Foss of GrainGrowers Ltd said better coverage on transport routes would assist drivers’ mental health. Mrs Foss explained ‘there are levels of frustration and anxiety that go with not being able to communicate, speak to someone and get hold of them’.
4.72Mr Rochford of Tourism Central Australia called for better coordination between road funding improvements and mobile coverage in Central Australia where he said:
Drive tourism represents 40 per cent of all visitation to the Northern Territory. Our visitors need mobile telephony for the obvious reasons…visitor safety being the primary driver, but also to enhance the visitor experience and visitor information, and the need for bookability.
4.73Mr McCabe from the WA Government said it was unrealistic to expect a state as vast as Western Australia to attain 100 per cent mobile coverage—'the desert areas are not going to be covered by terrestrial mobile’— but more coverage should reasonably extend to the main highways.
4.74Ms Griffin, the Acting Director for Regional Digital Solutions at the WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, said the WA Government had a strategic approach to extending coverage.
We have had a radio engineer look at elevations so that the coordinates we have make sense to the networks. I would argue that very few of the sites that are funded in WA weren't driven by the state in the first place. We share the list with carriers, we meet with them and then we negotiate on where we'll provide a state co-contribution. We give them a larger pool of sites than we would expect them to address, partly because they have their own internal investment priorities that make sense to their network architecture that we don't necessarily have good visibility of.
4.75The NT Government’s Mr Perrin outlined the recent addition of telecommunications infrastructure as part of the considerations of the Territory infrastructure commissioner who oversees the ‘longer term strategic planning around building infrastructure, whether that's power, sewerage, roads et cetera’:
We have recently managed to, from a Territory perspective, have telecommunications infrastructure included in that sort of grand strategic plan so that every time infrastructure builds are being considered we roll in the telecommunications infrastructure at the same time, rather than building it in later or overbuilding it afterwards.
4.76Ms Griffin questioned why, for example, if there's a ‘major highway development where we have Commonwealth and state funding, why isn't there fibre being laid along that route at the same time, as part of the deal?’:
But often it's not. I think we can do more clever things in major infrastructure development that would at least increase the density of fibre, which is a real problem for us in WA. If you look at Queensland, it seems to have been better at leveraging its state assets to deliver fibre to more communities; of course, it has more communities.
4.77Mr Carvey of Fortescue Metals Group Ltd believed all big infrastructure projects need to make provision for the funding and laying of data and fibre networks at the same time as the new road, rail and energy infrastructure was being built.
As the federal government think about decarbonisation and electric grids and that sort of stuff, we should be thinking about data and fibre at the same time. For us to come later and do it costs five times the price. If you are going through that construction to put a trench down the side of a highway, then to drop fibre in there can be massively valuable.
4.78The NT Government’s Mr Hosking explained the complex challenge with seeking to use federal funds for building a government-owned road with the associated telecommunications infrastructure owned privately:
We have a strong collaborative relationship with the people in the [federal] infrastructure department. The reality is, if there are any policy impediments, they're not insurmountable ones. The difference here is that, with all of those other elementary roads and electricity and water, once they're planned for and built, they're government owned assets, whereas the connectivity network is owned by the telcos. So I guess there are two issues here. The first is the planning upfront, so that it's by design rather than retrospectively dug up and trenched in. The second is how we pay for it, because the funding for all the other pieces of infrastructure comes from the federal government.
4.79Telstra noted evidence to a road safety inquiry from the Western Roads Federation and Northern Territory Road Transport Association that truck drivers were often first on the scene at accidents and that ‘delays caused by a lack of connectivity in those areas’ had been identified as an issue of concern as well as the role in maintaining drivers’ mental health by alleviating loneliness and improving safety:
The public benefits of improved connectivity in these situations are clear. Beyond the human cost, a single road death has an attributed cost of over $7 million. Access to back to base messaging would enable truck drivers to send urgent accident alerts which would also identify their location, speeding up response times by professional paramedic services.
4.80Despite being the major north-south corridor for freight and an increasing number of tourists from Adelaide to Darwin, Primary Producers SA described the Stuart Highway as continuing to be ‘plagued with black spots’:
This is more than an inconvenience to tourists looking to upload photos of the amazing landscape. This is a continuing cause of angst and anxiety for the residents of the surrounding area. All too often it is local producers and their staff who are the first on the scene of emergency incidents.
4.81Primary Producers SA identified the need for temporary roaming arrangements during emergency situations such as floods and bushfires, saying ‘limited coverage and capacity often means that while calls are not of a triple-zero nature, essential coordinating calls cannot be connected’.
Rural food and fibre producers
4.82Ms Caroline Rhodes of the Primary Producers SA said the government had a role to play in mobile connectivity investment across regional and remote SA:
As one of the least densely populated states in Australia, South Australia and the regionally based primary industry sectors battle to demonstrate the commercial incentive for network operators to invest … PPSA contends that South Australian producers need accessible, reliable, quality and affordable telecommunications and connectivity services to drive both productivity and sustainability. Consideration of multicarrier infrastructure as a means of supporting these principles is important.
4.83Grain Producers SA echoed this concern, and according to CEO Brad Perry:
Grain producers are significant contributors to South Australia's economy and need accessible, reliable, affordable connectivity to do business. Without it, they struggle to adopt the latest technological innovations or even to do the basics, such as undertaking business in real time out in the paddock or in the office. …
With the high price of inputs, reducing costs through accuracy by utilising precision agricultural equipment is important. To do that, you need full connectivity. There is no room for patchy reception.
4.84Mrs Tracy Lefroy of GrainGrowers said mobile coverage was an essential element of modern agricultural practice. Having good connectivity allowed farmers to develop comprehensive private networks.
…we have installed an on-farm mesh network. We can utilise all sorts of technology. It gives us paddock-level information, it controls water tank levels and fertiliser tank levels, and automation of livestock water sources. This investment has been crucial to us, not only in terms of on-farm agtech adoption but, as you said, in attracting and retaining that workforce.
4.85Mr Alastair Falconer, the Chair of WA Grains Group, said coverage was generally poor.
Our members have spent thousands on repeaters and other forms of trying to get a better signal, which are not always reliable. There are a lot of dropouts. There is change between networks. It doesn't work very well.
4.86Mr Michael O'Callaghan, Vice Chair of the WA Grains Group said members had spent ‘a lot of money on different mobile systems’ with little success:
We tried to change our whole GPS system to Mnet. It cost $30,000 and it was a very unsuccessful move over the years. It kept getting worse because, with each change in the 'G', we got less coverage…. We are 80 km to the nearest hospital. The fastest an ambulance could get here is in 1.5 hours.
… More towers are vital.
4.87Ms Griffin of the WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development said the sheer size of rural properties meant publicly funded infrastructure might only benefit a tiny handful of people, bringing into question the community benefit of such expenditure.
If the majority of benefits are going to a private business, that's difficult for us. That makes it very difficult to offer solutions that are targeting a pastoral station. We try to focus on areas where there are multiple public benefits. As we go into more remote areas, that becomes an issue for us.
Other issues related to regional connectivity
4.88This section outlines evidence received about proposals for improved coverage and connectivity or more energy-efficient infrastructure, the role of better planning in peri‑urban communities, and measuresrelating to digital inclusion.
Linking mobile towers to renewable energy networks and EV chargers
4.89Dr Heithersay of the South Australian Government said the Australian Government’s Rewiring the Nation plan meant billions of dollars of energy infrastructure was set to be rolled out, and there was a potential for telecommunications services to utilise that infrastructure if they spoke to the right people early enough.
It is a new infrastructure build. Surely what we're talking about here can be built as part of that as well, particularly for areas where there are no commercial incentives. If you are going to be putting in multibillion-dollar power lines—and there will be a lot of them; … —there surely is an opportunity to use that infrastructure as a backbone for what we're talking about here.
4.90Dr Heithersay said options to consider included the placement of communications assets on energy infrastructure, and knowing when and where Rewiring the Nation trenches and corridors were being dug so conduit and/or fibre could be laid too, saving time and money in having to repeat planning processes and earthworks.
There have to be some savings to be made if you are going to be building infrastructure as well, even if it's just using the same corridor. A lot of cost now is just establishing the corridor for whatever infrastructure it is. …to be able to build the rules such that a fibre network or whatever can be put in that same corridor and not have to go through the hoops again.
4.91Mr Peter Ridsdale, Coordinator, Economic Development, Golden Plains Shire Council would welcome co-location of infrastructure and a collaboration between all the MNOs and tower companies in the game:
I tried to convince the windfarms to put the telecommunications infrastructure on their towers to reduce cost. The manufacturer came back and said it would void warranties. It's shared infrastructure and collaboration with all parties, instead of having an Optus tower here and a Telstra tower there. It doesn't make sense.
4.92Dr Heithersay said other opportunities for co-location and co-investment were with the growing electric vehicle (EV) charging network, and with mining companies that developed their own private networks.
Perhaps potentially in amongst that mix there is an opportunity to say, 'Right, we're building remote EV stations. Maybe we can subsidise a tower at this point.' The mines will build their own infrastructure. There is an opportunity to get leverage off those sites when they appear.
4.93Dr Heithersay said federal, state, territory and local governments should meet regularly with the energy and telecommunications sectors to ensure they were all on the same page.
Essentially, removing the silos and the barriers for looking at a utility where it can be. As I say, with Rewiring the Nation and digitisation being such an important part of climate change now, why wouldn't you include that as part of the remit?
4.94Akin to this co-location approach, Mr O'Leary of the ACCC saw merit in using energy infrastructure to host mobile equipment:
We see plenty of examples of the mobile network infrastructure providers, the tower companies, using electricity tower assets, or using NBN towers to some degree but not a lot. It depends on the location. They're built for different purposes. Where they can do it, they will do it; it's a bit like mobile.
Energy efficiencies by sharing infrastructure that improves connectivity
4.95Nokia said the positive impact of its communications and chip technology has enabled ‘other industries, society, and individuals to decarbonise in a way that has an exponential positive effect’ on the world.
We have developed a range of chipsets that are substantially more energy efficient than previous versions, including introducing the FP5 chip which provides up to 75 percent reduction in power consumption of the FP4 chip, which allowed us to meet our 2023 power efficiency goals two years ahead of schedule.
4.96Nokia submitted that base station sites alone account for more than 80 per cent of use-phase emissions, and sharing infrastructure can make ‘a considerable difference’.
Running idle resources and cooling systems consume a significant part of the energy. … At Nokia, we have pioneered new liquid cooling systems for base stations, which are exponentially more efficient at transferring heat than traditional air fans, reducing energy consumption of cooling by up to 90 per cent and CO2 emissions by up to 80 per cent.
4.97Nokia also said the reduction of power on a site through the deployment of multi‑band radios could reduce energy consumption by at least 41 per cent in an active sharing context. Shared infrastructure works towards reducing the regional carbon footprint:
If the largest energy consumers in the country could reduce their carbon footprint because of reduced energy consumption due to infrastructure sharing, this could be a needle mover in Australia’s decarbonization efforts. We also have introduced software, like AVA Energy Efficiency service, which applies Artificial Intelligence (AI) to further reduce energy usage in 5G and multi-vendor legacy networks by up to 20 per cent.
4.98Nokia recommended governments recognise that improved digitalisation and connectivity are important green investments and to accept that a critical part of digitalisation was robust connectivity:
The rollout of 5G and leading-edge fibre networks is the foundation upon which decarbonisation can thrive. Through robust connectivity, society can accelerate the rollout of sensors, AR/VR, cloud, and analytics to maximize the sustainable benefits delivered through advanced technologies.
Better planning to improve mobile coverage in peri-urban communities
4.99Mr Matthew Evans, Consultant, Mobile Carriers Forum, AMTA said mobile infrastructure needed to be planned earlier and more strategically:
Often you'll find there is no sort of early identification of mobile network facilities in a precinct structure plan in a growth area, and therefore it creates enormous challenges for the carriers when they've got to then go and deploy in those areas either during the rollout of those residential areas on the fringes of capital cities or regional centres. I think that we really need to treat mobile telecommunications in some ways like other utilities that are factored into those precinct structure plans.
4.100Poor mobile coverage experienced by residents of the new suburb of Armstrong Creek in Geelong’s southern growth corridor required contemporary planning, said Mr MichaelJohnston, CEO, Committee for Geelong.
It is a new suburb, 10 years old at most. It is experiencing large black spots and really poor connectivity. … We need to plan and get that infrastructure in place from the get-go, so that these people aren't moving out into these growth corridors and experiencing that same poor quality.
4.101Mr Horley from infrastructure provider Indara said commercial imperatives drove decision-making about servicing peri-urban and holiday areas.
In many areas…if you look at the costs, there's roughly half a million dollars to build a tower; half a million for all of the active equipment to install that equipment; and probably another half a million to operate that equipment over 10 years. If you think of, say, a highway location or even one of the beachside suburbs where visitors are visiting, for a carrier they're not going to connect any new customers or any material incremental revenue from that site, because people are just visiting and passing through. So it becomes difficult for them to have an incentive.
4.102Mr Horley said Indara was building dozens of towers in high-growth peri-urban areas, under-written by licences with carriers. But where towers were not commercial there was a role for programs like the MBSP:
… there are still dozens of these areas, in peri-urban areas and particularly in rural and regional Australia, where we do have complete market failure. There is no business case for the carriers to build infrastructure, but the communities need it. We've built 1200 sites under the black spot program, and that's made a big difference.
4.103Mr Evans said AMTA had made a submission to the Greater Holtze area in Darwin to encourage mobile infrastructure being factored into development plans, and has also encouraged Wanneroo Council in WA to plan ahead:
It really does have a very significant impact. … in the northern fringes of Melbourne, in the Mitchell Shire, a telecommunications facility was refused by council. There were no objections. It was nowhere near residential properties, but unfortunately it was refused because there had been no resolution of the structure plan.
4.104Mr Evans saw merit in Commonwealth funding to state, territory and local governments being contingent on encouraging land agencies and councils to better plan for telecommunications infrastructure ahead of housing construction:
I think we've got to encourage the land agencies of the states and territories and also local councils to initially do that planning first. Then perhaps you could look at those types of co-funding arrangements via the federal government.
Bridging the digital divide for regional communities and rural women
4.105Ms Bronwyn Johnson, Program Manager, Rural Women Online, Victorian Women's Trust highlighted the importance of digital inclusion for rural women and their need for reliable access to affordable mobile coverage:
… without basic digital skills and access to affordable data we are entrenching women's marginalisation. … the complaints from women showed that intermittent and expensive data was clearly impacting their ability to create digital capacity for themselves, their families and within their communities.
4.106Ms Johnson said the Rural Women Online Project estimated one-third of single women living in regional Victoria were living under or close to the poverty line:
Often women told us that they moved to the country for more affordable housing, yet work doesn't necessarily follow. Women, especially in their 50s, want to work and receive a 'city wage'. This demands that they have access to excellent wi-fi and service provision to allow their own economic participation to flourish from any location.
If you bring more players into the marketplace, that could build the competitive element.
4.107Ms Johnson said the business community in the Victorian town of Myrtleford took matters into its own hands to get connected:
All the business people got together—because they are inundated with tourism, but they couldn't get the support—and they put up a tower.
4.108Ms Leah McPherson, Major Projects and Initiatives, Victorian Women's Trust said communities and councils were plugging the gaps:
If [telecommunications] corporations decide, 'That's not for us; that's not the space that we want to play in,' it provides space for other business models to come through. It could be community-owned assets. Maybe the community themselves understand the value of needing to access telehealth, Services Australia, education providers and a whole range of things. They might say, 'You might not be able to make a buck from it, but I bet we can come up with a business model that enables us to use that infrastructure’.
4.109Ms Johnson said governments must encourage MNOs to overcome the digital divide.
… it is about providing any competition that we can bring to the current corporate system. It is also about considering other models within that, and it could be community-driven. They don't have to be for-profit, but that infrastructure must be provided by the federal government or we will leave people behind.
Access to independent technological advice and support
4.110Ms Caroline Rhodes, Chief Executive Officer, Primary Producers SA said Government-supported initiatives such as the National Farmers’ Federation Regional Tech Hub ‘directly impacted 10,000 households with a further 100,000 by helping [them] get connected and stay connected’.
4.111Mr Downing of ACCAN praised the Regional Tech Hub.
It's been a very successful project, from our perspective. We were involved at various stages with it…. We're underserving some communities where the infrastructure has been constructed and funded by government and yet we're still not really hitting the sides.
4.112Mr Nathan Paine of the SAFPA said the latest mobile technology was not the only answer as it requires different solutions in different regions, depending on their populations and consumer demand.
Boosters, for example…can be exceptionally helpful, but they are only helpful if you have some signal. … If you have no signal, you can try and times zero by a thousand or a million and it's still going to be zero. That's the fundamental problem.
4.113Ms Rollinson said ‘only the MNOs know where their coverage really goes to’ and indicated that a coverage audit by government was required.
The publicly published maps, in our experience, and based on our data checking, are not reliable in terms of seeing what the experience is for the consumer on the ground with that phone. Relying on those maps doesn't really help us to figure out where the black spots are and where the problem is. … We are throwing darts at a dartboard, if you like, trying to figure out where to deploy our capital to shared infrastructure.
4.114Mr McCabe of the WA Government’s Primary Industries and Regional Development Department said the Australian Government needed to better understand performance of mobile networks beyond using the web service Ookla that provides free analysis of internet access performance metrics, such as data connection rate and latency:
I would love to know, from data provided through to government, what is the actual performance and what is the expected performance. … The expectation for NBN is well known: everybody in Australia will have access to NBN. What is the expectation for 4G reliable, high-capacity wireless digital hand-held? What is it?
4.115Ms Sarah Proudfoot, Executive General Manager, Infrastructure Division, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said the ACCC provides a mobile infrastructure report every year:
That's based on a record-keeping rule, under which we require the MNOs to provide information on things like the number of sites they're operating, changes in the number of sites, the extent to which there's co-location on those sites and the land mass that's covered. However, as part of that, we have had challenges with the maps.
4.116Ms Tara Morice, Acting General Manager Mobiles, Transmission and Consumer Branch, ACCC said in 2018, the ACCC identified things like ‘comparability of maps as a bit of an issue’:
As a result of us raising this as an issue, the mobile network operators started to use the same sort of language when referring to coverage. However, we have heard that people are still having issues with the accuracy of maps and being able to compare them.
4.117Ms Morice said the government was committed to an ‘audit of mobile coverage, which is going to be a really interesting process to go through’:
I think that's a good first step in assessing the quality of the coverage maps.
4.118Ms Proudfoot said the ACCC will publish the information received.
4.119Ms Julie Broad, Chief Executive Officer, Bunbury Geographe Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recommended the Australian Government undertake a thorough region-by-region analysis of mobile coverage.
Do a gaps analysis of each of the regions, according to the issues that each has, and make sure that government is willing to discuss that.
4.120Mr Downing of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network said mobile network operators use detailed engineering data to run their networks but getting that information from them was challenging.
Social benefits and economic analysis of improved mobile infrastructure
4.121Evidence was received on the social and economic benefits expected to accrue inregional and remote communities from improved mobile connectivity. Some inquiry participants called for targeted analysis of the costs and community benefits purported to result from better mobile connectivity in these parts of the country. Proponents of this action claimed the resulting data could better inform future policyand co-investment decisions.
4.122Mr Downing of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network said there was value in conducting a thorough analysis of improved economic activity from new mobile infrastructure in under-serviced regional communities, suggesting it was difficult to prioritise government expenditure without such information.
Ultimately, that requires extensive economic modelling work to be undertaken which, to my knowledge, has not occurred. …
What are the different aspects of a service that consumers value? Is it reliability? Is it infrastructure resilience…? What other aspects do you want to include—coverage, capacity? … If we had much more insight, that would be useful from an infrastructure perspective, purely to determine what stacks up from a cost-benefit standpoint and prioritisation. …
But I think what's really critical is that, if it's undertaken, it has to be published.
4.123Mr Nick Sloan, Chief Executive Officer of the WA Local Government Association welcomed a comprehensive economic analysis of the potential benefits of improving mobile coverage in regional Australia:
While profitability of business is important, the ability for local governments to discharge their community service obligations is also a really critical measure for us.
4.124Mr David De Garis, Government Relations and Communications Manager, Australian Hotels Association (WA) said it was obvious ‘better communications for our industry directly lead to greater profitability’:
It can be a difference of millions of dollars in the space of a few days. … Having access to quick telecommunications is critical.
Committee comment
4.125Evidence to the inquiry pointed to gaps in mobile coverage in regional, rural and remote locations and the reliability of documented black spots as surveyed and mapped. The Committee considers it critical that regular audits are undertaken of coverage and connectivity deficiencies across Australia. Collection, analysis and publication of this data and findings can inform stakeholders and assist in better decision-making.
4.126The Universal Service Obligation’s growing redundancy in a world dominated by online and mobile telecommunications platforms was repeatedly raised. The Committee notes all Australians should be able to access reliable and readily available modern telecommunications.
4.127The Committee endorses calls for better integration of mobile infrastructure in planning schemes, streamlining of planning approval processes, and consideration of telecommunications infrastructure during road construction and energy rollouts. As such, the Committee recommends, as a priority, the development of a Regional Australia Mobile Telecommunications Strategy to consider synergies in meeting the holistic infrastructure demands, now and into the future, of contemporary and thriving regions.
4.128Key jurisdictional stakeholders from state and territory government agencies in portfolios including environment and planning, regions and transport, and employment and tourism—and local government through the Australian Council of Local Government, should meet before a benchmarking audit of Australian mobile coverage commences in 2024. The stakeholders would consider the fundamental elements of the Strategy, including population, employment and technology trends, growth corridors and regional expansion.
4.129Biennial audits of mobile coverage will inform the Strategy going forward and this information could dovetail with regional growth patterns and mobile demands.
4.130The Committee also recommends specific measures below which may be pursued as part of the Strategy, where appropriate.
4.131The Committee recommends the Australian Government conducts and publishes the results of a government-led region‑by‑region mobile coverage audit, with analysis of coverage gaps across regional, rural and remote Australia. The audit would benchmark metrics on connection, data capacity and latency and should commence before the next Regional Telecommunications Independent Review commences under Part 9B of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 (Cth); and biennially thereafter.
4.132The Committee recommends the Australian Government lead development of a Regional Australia Mobile Telecommunications Strategy to consider the trends and demands of regional growth and identify regions and growth corridors where synergies can occur in the planning and construction of transport routes, energy, water and telecommunications connections.
The strategy should be developed and agreed in consultation with state and territory governments and the Australian Local Government Association.
The results of mobile coverage audits and key data on regional growth, industry, employment and tourism drivers would inform the Strategy.
4.133The Committee recommends the Australian Government work with state and territory governments and relevant stakeholders to develop agreed guidelines for considering telecommunications infrastructure needs in early planning phases of road and rail construction and energy infrastructure rollouts.
4.134The Committee recommends the Australian Government reform the powers and immunities in Commonwealth legislation, such as the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth) to enable mobile infrastructure to be deployed in regional, rural and peri-urban areas more swiftly.
4.135The Committee recommends the Australian Government prohibit its agencies from charging additional co-user rental fees above the rent a principal tenant pays to lease Commonwealth crown land for the purpose of providing telecommunications services.
4.136The Committee recommends the Australian Government work with state and territory governments and industry to negotiate smaller minimum lot sizes that can safely host new mobile infrastructure.
4.137The Committee recommends the Australian Government facilitate the harmonisation of planning and environmental regulations for new mobile infrastructure across regional, rural and remote Australia.
4.138The Committee recommends the Australian Government develop and implement a practical universal service obligation for mobile telecommunications service providers.
4.139The Committee recommends the Australian Government facilitate early 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.
4.140The Committee recommends the Australian Government encourage investment in ‘smart’ mobile infrastructure that incorporates renewable and decarbonised energy solutions.
4.141The Committee recommends the Australian Government commission and publish a government-led cost-benefit analysis of increased access to telecommunications infrastructure in under-serviced regional and remote communities to inform future policy and program development and funding decisions.