Telecommunication services are essential services, as important to our health and way of life as the electricity and water in our homes. We rely on phone and internet services in emergencies, for work, banking, telehealth services, social cohesion – everything. We need a policy agenda that reflects the indispensable nature of telecommunications. Regional, rural, and remote consumers are getting left behind, and it’s time that serious efforts are made to address the digital divide in this country.
Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, Cynthia Gebert
The issues
According to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, in the three years up to June 2024, 51,854 phone and internet complaints were made by consumers living in regional, rural and remote areas. Faults, poor service quality, poor mobile service coverage, outages and accessibility barriers were common.
In many regional locations it can take several years to have problems resolved and often there is no improvement at all.
This can be especially dangerous for consumers living in areas at greater risk of bushfires, cyclones, floods and other natural disasters. Reliable access to telco services plays a critical role in the coordination of disaster response, recovery and in sharing timely and accurate information during major outages and crises.
While satellite services may resolve connectivity issues for some consumers, these services can be highly dependent on weather conditions. The TIO’s complaint data shows consumers in regional areas continue to experience unreliable connections and service quality problems. Satellite is also a more expensive service type, and may not be affordable for all consumers.
Telecommunication services are essential services, as important to our health and way of life as the electricity and water in our homes. We rely on phone and internet services in emergencies, for work, banking, telehealth services, social cohesion – everything.
Climate disasters are becoming more frequent and severe so it is urgent that communications infrastructure is improved so mobile phone coverage and internet connectivity is resilient.
Our plan
- Provide good quality, affordable and reliable high-speed internet and mobile phone access to rural communities
- Close the gap in life expectancy and health outcomes for rural and remote people
- Improve the telehealth infrastructure and provide support for patients in using this equipment
- Restore the Medibank rebate for longer video telehealth consultations
- Remove data charges for low-income and income support recipients in regional, rural and remote areas
- Create universal unmetered online access to government, hospital and health services for people and businesses in rural and remote areas.
The TIO calls for modernisation of telecommunications requiring:
- One coherent, robust and modern regulatory framework to offer standards for different services.
- Clear benchmarks and standards so that consumers can seek compensation.
- The government should consider the essential nature of mobile services, to ensure the regulatory framework meets community expectations.
- Mobile coverage maps standardised, accessible to all consumers, including information about geographical location, quality of coverage, and data speeds.
- First Nations consumers consulted on plans about how to help close the digital inclusion gap and focus on mobile accessibility to improve connectivity in regional areas.
- Improve the subsea cable systems connecting Australia to other countries to improve our network, build resilience and potentially offer infrastructure capability investments in the future
- Increase funding to support the build of more base towers to extend the footprint across regional Australia, increasing coverage
The evidence
The Federal Government’s 2022-23 budget included $656 million over five years to improve mobile and broadband connectivity.
The Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee found that while many regional centres now enjoy urban-level connectivity, smaller and more remote communities still face ongoing struggles with service quality, reliability and affordability. Awareness of NBN options is limited, existing mobile networks in many regional areas face congestion and capacity issues, terrestrial mobile networks are becoming unviable due to sparse populations and high cost of infrastructure and maintenance, and First Nations communities continue to face significant challenges in accessing quality affordable services. Landline services are ageing and increasingly expensive to operate.
References:
Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s submission to the 2024 Regional Telecommunications Review in July 2024
Bosun, Australia Connect initiative for Indo-Pacific connectivity | Google Cloud Blog
2104_Q-A_Communication-tower-infrastructure-Explaining-the-Gs-that-are-changing-communications.pdf