Pointless Mobile Blackspot Audit Goes To Tender.
Pointless Mobile Blackspot Audit – An audit of Australia’s mobile network blackspots – locations where nulls, landforms and lack of infrastructure combine to limit mobile performance – has gone to tender.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said mapping gaps in Australia’s telecommunications coverage would be vital to improving connections in regional and rural Australia.
Rowland said the government’s request for tenders was “another important step” in delivering a national mobile coverage blueprint.
“This audit will help identify mobile black spots and capacity issues where local experience doesn’t reflect predictive maps, allowing us to better target investment and policy options that help people get and remain connected,” she said.
The audit is part of the government’s Better Connectivity Plan that has invested $A875 million to install 1297 mobile base stations across regional Australia.
Pointless Mobile Blackspot Audit Goes To Tender
With long-range 3G bandwidth slated for closure soon, it’s likely that issues with mobile network coverage are going to get worse in the short and medium term, as telcos invest in infrastructure-heavy metro 5G.
While the 1297 new towers increase coverage, 4G towers have an average diameter of around 15km and are centred around towns and key pieces of infrastructure. Given Australia’s huge size, this means there are vast areas with no mobile coverage at all.
Valued at $A20 million, it’s likely the tender, which will begin gathering information next year and will take 5 years to complete, is going to be far too little and far too late for many static remote users, who will have switched to satellite services.
You can read more about Australia’s expensive and vague Better Connectivity Plan here, or if you’re actually trying to get a remote security solution to stand up anytime soon, you can talk your customer into signing up for a Starlink connection here – there’s more SEN news here.
“Mobile Blackspot Audit Goes To Tender.”
