One of Australia’s powerful non-political lobby groups is pushing forward a proposal for fully tax-refundable satellite phone technology, in recognition of how often failed communications during crises puts rural people at high risk.
The Country Women’s Association of Victoria has been lobbying politicians, including Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, for the past year, and made a submission to last year’s Regional Telecommunications Review.
In their submission, CWAVic referenced a number of bushfires where CWA members and their communities experienced widespread and long-term communications “blackouts”.
These included the 2019/20 summer bushfires across Australia’s east and on Kangaroo Island, the Cobden/Terang fires in March 2018, and the Bunyip/Yinnar fires of March 2019.
A review by the Australian Communications and Media Authority identified 1390 facilities, including many mobile network base stations, batteries and nodes, including backup batteries, were affected during the 2019/20 bushfires across Australia’s eastern states and South Australia.
More than 1000 of these facilities were offline for varying periods, from hours to weeks and months. The average length of an outage was 3.5 days, but critically that was in the first days of 2020, when people needed reliable communication during frightening emergency situations.
They also needed to receive information through the emergency services text network, which was ineffective in those circumstances.
Some towers were burned, but the biggest impact was the lack of grid power to the tower network, either because power lines were turned off or burnt, or the poles holding up wires were burned down. Where battery backup was available it was ineffective, lasting only a few hours; but batteries were mostly ineffective because contractors were not allowed in fire zones to deliver them where they were needed.
But their submission was also relevant to storms, CWAVic state president Pam Mawson said, citing the feedback she received from members and other rural dwellers in central and north-eastern Victoria, Sylvan and Gippsland who were without communications after severe storm activity in the middle of last year brought down power lines and power poles.
This lack of power to telecommunications towers meant the mobile telephone networks were inoperable.
This situation is despite the Federal Government committing a further $380 million last year, on top of $875 million, to the Mobile Black Spot Program to invest in telecommunications infrastructure to improve mobile coverage across Australia.
“… this is an important national issue that hasn’t been addressed and there’s a federal election coming up this year,” Pam said.
“Every time there’s a serious, traumatic, impactful occurrence, this issue [lack of telecommunications and internet cover for rural people] is in the mix.
“This failure continues to need an urgent, coordinated and funded response.”
Joanne Alderman, one of CWAVic’s three state vice presidents, said development of the organisation’s proposal was the result of a grassroots movement that led into a motion put up to the annual conference two years ago, and which was passed unanimously as a national issue.
“I know technology keeps changing,” Joanne said. “But the proposal has merit.”
She said it was too easy for the Federal Government to cite current government contracts that supported favoured infrastructure, like mobile telephone towers, instead of supporting a broader delivery of options that included satellite technology used in rural communities, and particularly for farmers, across Australia.
Joanne said a critical part of CWAVic’s submission was to support the tax write-off in the year of purchase, of satellite phone technology. This would encourage the uptake of satellite phone technology that enabled mobile phones to be used as satellite phones when towers were offline.
But it was also necessary for the government to support initiatives to reduce the cost of using satellite phone technology. Currently, calls using satellite phones were ridiculously expensive, in comparison to mobile phone rates.
“The actual communication cost is very expensive. It’s not just the technology; government needs to ensure the cost of using the satellite phone is reasonable,” Joanne said.
CWAVic’s lobbying for a better communication system is supported by CFA Victoria and initiatives it is considering for brigade members.
CFA’s Assistant Chief Officer Trevor Owen said the organisation was investing in satellite technology that adapted brigade members’ mobile phones so they could use them in bushfire scenarios, rather than repeat the experience of the 2019/20 summer.
“A lot of our members feel there’s a lot not being done to connect people to emergency services warnings and conditions,” he said.
The chief concern is getting emergency information into communities, and the 2019/20 bushfires demonstrated mobile phone towers were not reliable for distributing that information. Nor were radio or television signals.
But Trevor believes appropriate satellite technology in everyday use in rural homes – a bluetooth modem, satsleeve or stand-alone phone – ensures that community members have a good chance of searching online for up-to-date emergency warnings.
And while the cost is currently prohibitive for the average person, that’s an issue that could be addressed by government policy.
It’s not only the general community that will benefit. Medical, ambulance, police and other emergency services were offline in some communities during the 2019/20 bushfires. Helicopters were used to relay satellite phones into incident control service outposts, to support decision making and communicate up-to-date information with the State Incident Control Centre.
Mobile phone and internet infrastructure were not able to cope with increased data demands in real crises.
That inability to cope was also demonstrated in 2021, with a number of storms in NSW and Victoria – where electricity and mobile telephone coverage was offline or considerably weakened for up to three weeks and people were unable to contact necessary emergency services and medical support.
Trevor said the CFA did use satellite phones during the 2019/20 fire period, and in some communities CFA volunteers were the only emergency services people with any communication. But the CFA was looking for a longer term solution.
“In 2019/20, the mobile phone towers went down more quickly than anyone envisaged.
“The Australian Defence Force dropped EPIRBs and military satellite phones into communities and they still had limited ability because of heavy smoke. You still have to have a line of sight connection to the satellite, and smoke and clouds can reduce that.”
But the satellite technology was more reliable than mobile telephone networks.
Trevor also cited the cost of using satellite phones as restrictive. Whereas adaptive technology, like a satellite modem installed in a fire truck, means one or several phones can hotspot to the satellite link, and – crucially – maintain connections with other trucks and the incident control centre.
Trevor said the concern for emergency services was how to ensure people in the community received emergency updates by text and maintained internet connectivity. He believed there was a role for satellite phone technology in that space.
“Emergency warnings are sent out using mobile phone towers – loss of mobile coverage meant there was also loss of warnings about danger – so a bigger thing in an emergency is that we need a way of bridging that technology gap,” he said.
Being at the forefront of embracing technology change also required government support – not only financial and policy direction – but lobbying private companies [like Telstra and Optus] to provide better and appropriate service.
“I think it’s useful to have an organisation like CWA lobbying for better communications services and connectivity,” Trevor said.
“Private companies require a stakeholder and shareholder interest because it’s about a business proposition. Government can financially support that. I think we’ve seen that even where government identifies there’s a need, private providers have agreements with their shareholders and financial backers about the level of service they’re providing. Government might have one view, but then businesses have a separate agreement with shareholders.
“Even in conversations with Telstra and others in 2019/20, they had their business lens. We had an emergency lens. We can’t require them to do something they either don’t have the will to do or the business principles to do.”
But the reliability of a phone and internet connection is more than crisis management. CWA’s Joanne Alderman said CWA identified that communications and transactions were impacted on a daily basis in rural areas. Community members needed access to a variety of options, rather than be limited to poor mobile connectivity.
“We see in farming communities that people want to be able to readily access technology to run their farms,” CFA’s Trevor Owen said.
“It’s also about supporting the tourist – we saw in the 2019/20 fires there were many tourists from overseas who were affected and they had no idea about the communication coverage that was or wasn’t available.”
The call for better technology support is gaining widespread momentum.
The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) is the peak body representing all consumers on ensuring telecommunications, broadband and emerging new services are inclusive and available to all.
In their submission to the 2020 Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements, [which followed the 2019/20 bushfires], ACCAN identified concerns about the resiliency of mobile, fixed and NBN networks during emergencies and disaster situations – concerns which had been raised by the National Council for Fire and Emergency Services for more than two years prior to 2019/20.
These concerns included using technology that didn’t rely on voice-only services and avoiding an over-reliance on radio and other mainstream services to provide emergency information to consumers. For example, radio, television and app services that use and disseminate data-heavy information had proven unreliable and, in some instances, failed, during the 2019/20 bushfires.
ACCAN identified that solutions needed to be affordable and deliverable for people living in and visiting across Australia’s remote, rural and regional areas.
∎ The 2021 Regional Telecommunication Independent Review Committee delivered its final report and recommendations to the Federal Government on December 20, 2021.
Federal Regionalisation Minister and committee member Bridget McKenzie said the government would be carefully considering the report’s findings and recommendations in developing its new regional telecommunications agenda.
“There are opportunities for government, communities, and industry to work together so that regional areas have access to connectivity which keeps pace with their needs,” she said.
The committee received a record-breaking 658 written submissions, along with strong feedback from 24 online consultation sessions attended by almost 500 people.
The report will remain under embargo while the government considers its response. The government expects to release the report and response in early 2022.