by Bernie Byrnes, a farmer from the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, can see when he wants to reach a mobile black spot on a highway.
“There are places on the side of the highway where the reception is. And you can see it if you are familiar with the vehicles. People are run over at the same place to end a conversation and end a meeting. And they know that they are familiar with the reception there, ”he says.
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In successive governments, millions of taxpayers have connected dollars to improve mobile cover in all of Australia. The multi -year problem with which the country is confronted is the size of the country compared to its population size and whether it is inexpensive to build towers for places with low population groups or to walk through people briefly, such as: B. motorways.
The universal mobile outdoor obligation, which is to be introduced by the Labor government as legislation, if it wins the next elections, would expand the existing obligations for the triple -zero access in the whole country to cover the coverage of language and SMS outdoors and also improve the availability of mobile services in disasters and power failures.
The arrival of new satellite services could help close the gap.
New technology, an old problem
Satellites with low earth (Leo) fly between 500 and 2,000 kilometers above sea level and turn the earth several times a day.
While the world’s desire for a constant connection led to these technologies have been developed and used worldwide, the spread of a growing number of smaller satellites and service providers has led to concern among astronomers to problems such as light pollution and space waste.
However, you quickly fill the gap in telecommunications services for remote places where you are too cost -intensive to publish solid networks or mobile towers and offer better service as geostationary satellites such as the satellites of the National Broadband Network (NBN).
NBN CO is in the advanced phases of selecting a Leo provider to replace the aging satellite service. In the meantime, more than 200,000 people in Australia have registered for Elon Musk’s Starlink service as an alternative.
From repaired to the phone
Satellite services were initially limited to permanent services. However, progress in technology is changing so that people have direct access to satellite connections. This means that – if the person is outside – she can access SMS and calls on satellites on your mobile phone.
In the recent forest fires in Los Angeles, T-Mobile used his direct service in cooperation with Starlink so that customers can make existing 4G cell phones despite conventional failures for mobile phone networks and send text messages.
The Albanese government sets this progress to close black spots throughout Australia and make networks more resistant in the event of power outages or natural disasters.
Sparse detail – and the Elon factor
There are sparse details about how much it would cost. Officials in the Senate estimated the hearings last week, the new universal mobile commitment could not give outdoors and the costs were “a matter for the government’s future consideration”. The current financing of the existing universal service obligations is 270 MA year.
The government plans to introduce the laws in 2025 after the consultation and the schedule beyond the next elections – and it would not be available until the end of 2027.
It has reported the guideline to include support for “goals of public interest and competition results”.
The competition is a big problem. The only commercial Leo operator in Australia is Starlink. While others, such as the Amazon project Kuiper, are planned for Australia, in the estimates of the Senate of the Greens, Sarah Hanson-Young, concerns about the Greens were expressed whether sovereign risk analysis was carried out.
“If Starlink is the only company owned in the United States, what does it mean if someone-elon Musk, someone else, I don’t know that it is not a service that is offered Australia?” Asked Hanson-Young.
James Chisholm, deputy secretary of the infrastructure department, said that an extensive analysis had been carried out and that despite the Starlink’s games, the guideline sends an important role “a clear signal” about the welcoming of other participants on the market.
“Everything will help”
David Howell, a resident of Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains in NSW, says he estimates that about 50% of the approximately 70 properties in his city do not receive mobile reporting at home.
“Any improvement that we can get into mobile reception would be fantastic,” he says. It is particularly important that the community is able to contact each other in emergency situations if mobile towers may have dropped and the landlords do not work.
“Everything will help because it is very important that we can contact the community [about] What’s going on and whether you evacuate or not. “
According to Byrnes, improved reporting would calm down and make the work more efficient.
“The more you can rely on technology, the more efficient you can become,” he says. “If we wait for a carrier to be in stock or wool or whatever, we rely on you to give us a head up, or vice versa.
“When we sit around, it’s the deadly time for everyone. So if we have reliable telephone reception, we can inform people. “
