Over the summer, many holidaymakers have been heading to regional Victoria and are likely to encounter a problem on their mobile phones that is only too familiar to regional Victorians; no reception.
For some, a brief bout of disconnection may seem a relief, but ultimately they know they will soon have service once they leave the area.
In recent years, organisers of regionally-located music festivals have come to arrangements with telecommunications providers to station temporary towers, called ‘Cells on Wheels’, or COWs, at the festival site. For urban festival goers a lack of mobile coverage is unacceptable, even for a short time.
Mobile phones provide essential services – they are vital to running modern businesses, keeping up social connections, dealing with government services, and being able to call for help in an emergency.
For city dwellers the expectation is that mobile coverage will be constantly accessible, of high quality and with choice in provider.
People outside of city centres have arguably more need for communications than those close to city centres, as there are often fewer options to communicate; no local libraries to log onto the internet; a slower postal service. It is not unheard of for a landline issue to remain unresolved for months.
Repeatedly we have been told, directly and indirectly, that due to the lower and more dispersed population of the regions, it is unreasonable to expect the government to ensure complete mobile coverage.
But those in the regions should have the same expectations of government to provide basic universal mobile cover, as those in the cities. The universal service obligation guaranteed that every Australian household would have a landline and it happened.
The federal government is looking to review the universal service obligation this year. If you are passionate about getting the regions connected with mobile, with internet, then we encourage you to have your voice heard and contact your local member on the review.
One of the VFF’s top priorities is telecommunications. We need government and telco investment to expand the footprint of mobile networks. For those in regional and rural Victoria disconnection is a fact of life, rather than a short vacation from reality.
