Viewed
ABC Sunshine Coast Story: Mobile Coverage Programme Visit to Fisher
HOST: Communication in the hinterland has been a problem; emergency situations have had many residents concerned in the past especially when trying to call triple zero. A forum was held today for residents to voice their concerns about mobile coverage black spots. Federal Member for Fisher Mal Brough organised the forum alongside Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher. Mr Fletcher, good afternoon.
PAUL FLETCHER: Good afternoon.
HOST: What did your visit entail?
PAUL FLETCHER
Well Mal Brough organised this meeting in the Glass House Mountains today. He had over 100 of his constituents there and it was an opportunity for me as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications to hear about the issues in the electorate of Fisher, about coverage issues and also for me to talk a bit about the Abbott Government’s programme to put $100 million of public money into improving mobile coverage in regional and remote Australia, and to talk a bit to the people who were there about what they could do to maximise the chances of locations that they thought ought to be funded under this program getting the nod.
HOST:
So what do residents need to do if they want that to happen?
PAUL FLETCHER:
Well, the first thing is to let us know of a location that you believe doesn’t have coverage and should have coverage, and you can do that either by obviously contacting Mal Brough’s office or you can send an email to [email protected]. All you need to do is mention the location that doesn’t have coverage and you believe should have coverage.
HOST:
And what did you hear from residents today Mr Fletcher?
PAUL FLETCHER:
Well, I heard about the importance of mobile coverage for a whole range of reasons; for safety, be it car accidents or other kinds of accidents, be it bushfires or other natural disasters, also the importance of mobile coverage for tourism. Tourism operators, a number were represented at the forum, and they spoke about the importance of having mobile coverage so that tourists will stay at their facilities and the expectations tourists have. I heard from a number of people talking about the importance of connectivity for their business; being able to be online to deal with customers, seize new business opportunities and of course, the importance of connectivity over mobiles as well as fixed. Another very important thing that was raised by a number of people was the importance of coverage of being connected to the internet, be it over the mobile or be it fixed when it comes to education. Children, increasingly, are being given homework that requires them to use the internet and so that‘s another example of the many ways in which the internet is changing our lives and it’s important to be connected.
HOST:
Now, you mentioned that the Federal Government is spending quite a bit of money to help in these black spot areas; $100 million?
PAUL FLETCHER:
Look, that’s right, under the previous Labor government for 6 years there was no public money that went into mobile networks. Now, each of the 3 mobile carriers, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone spends a lot of money each year on expanding their networks, but of course ours is a big country and the carriers naturally use business rules to determine which locations make sense for them to improve their coverage, but there will be important areas where there’s a need for coverage that might not get it under those business rules and that is why we want to put this public money in. Now, it’s a competitive selection process to identify the areas of greatest need. We’ve talked about, for example, areas on major transport routes, small communities, areas that are prone to natural disaster and also areas with unique mobile coverage needs, for example because there might be a town that has a high seasonal variation because a lot of people come in over, say, the Christmas or the holiday period.
HOST:
So what’s the timeframe on this programme being rolled out?
PAUL FLETCHER:
Well, we are continuing to take suggestions from people of locations to be considered to about June. What we want to do in the second half of this year is to have a competitive selection process under which the three carriers, and potentially some other parties, will have the opportunity to bid to essentially say how many of these locations they could cover, and how much money they would put in because we’re expecting them to make a co-contribution. The intention is in the first half of next year to be able to identify and announce sites which have won funding with a view to the first base stations funded under this program rolling out in the second half of next year. The intention is we’re a very big country, there’s a lot of areas that need coverage, while we won’t be able to fix every problem, what we want to do is get to the areas of greatest need and get base stations operating where today there are no mobile base stations and there’s no coverage.
HOST:
If an area really, desperately, wants coverage can they actually help to raise some money themselves?
PAUL FLETCHER:
Look, they certainly can and that’s a very good point and that’s one of the things we’ve tried to build into the design of this programme. If there are, for example, local councils or potentially a business, perhaps a tourism business that wants to put in some money as well then we absolutely want to capture all of that information to make this programme a bit of a clearing house so that that information is presented to all the carriers. For example, last week I was in Western Australia and we learned about the operators of a mine who are interested in making a contribution towards the potential building of a base station in that location. There may well be other businesses around Australia, indeed there may also possibly be local councils or other community organisations that want to contribute towards at least part of the cost and wherever people want to do that we want to make sure we capture that information.
HOST:
So there are many ways to have a say and if you are worried about mobile reception in your area to hopefully ensure that something happens about it. Thank you very much for being on Sunshine Coast today and let’s hope that in the not too distant future we have some answers to those problems.
PAUL FLETCHER:
It’s a pleasure, thanks very much.
HOST:
Paul Fletcher is the Member for Bradfield in New South Wales. He is also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications.
{soundcloud}https://soundcloud.com/paul-fletcher-mp/abc-sunshine-coast-story-mobile-coverage-programme-visit-to-fisher{/soundcloud}