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ABC Country Hour: Bidding opens for mobile phone blackspot funding
Mobile phone companies can now start bidding for government money to build new phone towers in blackspot areas.
The Federal Government has pledged $100 million to improve mobile coverage and earlier this year published a list of 6,000 locations with inadequate reception.
Parliamentary Secretary for Communications, Paul Fletcher, says bidders will be asked to supply a list of locations where they would build new or upgraded mobile base stations, and the government will assess them to decide which recieve funding. Mr Fletcher says communities desperate for coverage may now be best to lobby phone companies."Certainly one thing I have said to them (community leaders) is that it does make sense to engage with the mobile operators to encourage them to consider your town or your village as a place to build a new base station."
Mr Fletcher says the government has also written to local councils in regional and remote areas asking if they are able to contribute resources, which could be free or cheaper earthmoving to build an access road, or free rent for the location of the tower, which may make their location more attractive for phone companies.
"(For) community leaders and community members who are interested in making sure there is the maximum chance for their town or village to get new coverage if it doesn't have it today, certainly one place to go now is to engage with Telstra, Optus and Vodafone," Mr Fletcher said.
He says the bids by mobile phone companies will be assessed on a number of factors.
"It's things like number of square kilometres that will now get mobile coverage that did not have it before, number of premises that will get coverage that did not have it before, number of kilometres of major transport route.
"It also looks at value for money, in other words, the amount of coverage the Commonwealth, or indeed the country, will get in a particular location in exchange for the number of dollars which the operator is seeking out of the fund."
Mr Fletcher says all of those factors will be weighed up and the Federal Government will come up with a list of sites funding will be provided to.
The government expects the funding will result in between 250 and 300 new mobile phone base stations being built around the country.
A decision will be made by June 2015 on which stations will be funded, with work on the first of the new stations to be started in the second half of 2015.
