Poor telecommunications is hindering business, social interaction, health and learning online in the Macedon Ranges.
A survey conducted across the shire in May identified that more than 70 per cent of respondents were not satisfied with their current reliability.
Just under 60 per cent of survey responses referred to being unable to access education. More than 90 per cent identified they were unable to work effectively from home.
“This is always a significant issue but during the current COVID response environment this lack of ability to continue to participate is impacting students’ ability to continue their studies and workers’ ability to earn an income,” Macedon Ranges Shire Council stated.
Survey data has informed the council’s submission to the Regional Telecommunications Review, which helps to set the regional communications policy agenda in future years.
Business doing it tough
The survey also highlighted daily struggles for businesses had increased since the pandemic, particularly with state-mandated QR check-ins.
With restrictions on reasons to leave home, many consumers moved to a greater level of online shopping, necessitating retailers to increase their own use of telecommunication services.
“Regional businesses are finding that poor access to telecommunications is severely impacting upon their ability to trade effectively when customers are unable to utilise mobile connections to check in on entry using QR codes for COVID tracing,” council’s submission said.
“Further, when attempting to pay using EFTPOS, customers are unable to complete a transaction in areas where mobile connection is unavailable or unstable.”
Woodend Traders Association presented numerous examples of businesses battling poor connectivity to the council in July after surveying the town.
President Catherine Bartlett, of Mort and Pestle, told the Express business owners in Woodend wanted support and advocacy for improvements.
“Woodend is particularly bad for connectivity. Doing business shouldn’t be this hard,” she said.
“Traders have experienced problems with paying staff, customer payments and now QR code check-ins – which are required by the state government but ridiculously tricky to do with limited services.
“We all know what the reasons are: the one tower that services Woodend is congested and can’t cope with the needs of the town. We are really looking for support from the council to seek solutions.”
Distance and landscape barriers
With more dispersed and smaller population centres than metropolitan areas, regions experience barriers to equitable service availability. This is the situation with both fixed and mobile telecommunications.
Coverage maps for both the Optus and Telstra mobile networks show areas of Macedon Ranges Shire with poor mobile coverage.
Challenges of increasing mobile coverage in Macedon Ranges included lower return on investment for infrastructure providers due to small population clusters and geographic features of hills, valleys and wooded areas.
The shire also has significant landscapes designated, which restricts some locations from being considered for telecommunications infrastructure.
The council’s submission acknowledged incentives for network providers to consider or adopt co-location of infrastructure could encourage investment and alternative models.
Disaster communications
The council also drew on chaotic storms in June that exposed the critical need for reliable communication in a natural disaster and sought solutions.
“Use of network roaming options could provide a more resilient provision of connection where one provider can provide additional capacity to subscribers of another network,” the submission said.
“Particularly during emergency situations this has a significant ability to provide a more resilient overall network without imposing unrealistic redundancy requirements on network providers.”
