Regional Australians Frustrated by Inaccurate Mobile Coverage Maps

Living in an over-50s village at Lake Macquarie, Greg Hinten's home is less than 3 kilometres away from the closest phone tower.

According to the latest coverage maps, his outdoor mobile phone reception should be moderate to good.

But the retired insurance risk manager said even just making a call was difficult for residents.

"It's a freezing cold night and you want to talk to your son or daughter or the grandkids, and you've got to sit outside or miss out," he said.

"One of [my neighbours], in particular, anytime he wants to get on the phone, he'll drive up to the top of the hill here and sit there, make his phone calls and then drive back home."

He said that while the 100 or so dwellings in the Toronto village did have NBN fibre to the node available, most residents could not afford it.

Mr Hinten has a Boost plan, which connects to the Telstra network.

Under new coverage maps that telcos have been forced to publish, his home is predicted to have basic to moderate Telstra 5G NSA service and moderate to good 4G.

But an app on his phone detects his signal to be -119 decibel-milliwatts (dBm) 4G and -120 5G while outside, and -139 dBm inside.

The new standards stipulate anything below -115 outside should be considered to have no coverage.

Mr Hinten said when a Telstra representative agreed to come and check it a few years ago, their response left him in disbelief.

He said the proposed solution was to install a booster across the road for $110,000, "but we'll pay half".

He said he ended up paying around $1,300 to install a cellular mobile repeater to boost his 4G signal, which he calculated to be a better long-term investment than an NBN plan.

Mr Hinton's repeater is legal, but there are strict rules around the types you can buy and use in Australia.

'We've all been had'

Helen Wood consulted the coverage maps before deciding to move from Melbourne to Bairnsdale in regional Victoria.

Under the new standards, her street is predicted to have good 4G and moderate to good 5G NSA coverage.

"There's no reception unless you drive 1.5 kilometres down the road to the highway."

Ms Wood said they had initially planned to shift their NBN plan across from their old house, but the move took longer than expected so they were forced to get a second NBN service just so that they could access wi-fi calling, which she said still dropped out.

She said while staff at the Telstra shop tried their best to help, the whole experience had left her incredibly stressed and was "teeth-grindingly frustrating".

"It's terribly expensive for no service."

Maps are 'predictive'

Telstra declined an interview, but in a statement a spokesperson said the maps were predictive and in line with the standardised methodology.

"It's simply not practical to physically test every road, property and remote location across the country," the statement said.

"As we must adhere to the prescribed ACMA standards, we can't update maps to reflect individual experiences that fall outside those standardised thresholds.

"However, we regularly update our coverage maps, adding new sites and refining coverage as we gather more real-world performance data."

The spokesperson said Telstra had only received one complaint since the new maps were published and encouraged customers to contact them.

The regulatory body, Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), said in a statement it was "confident that the modelling provides an indication of expected outdoor coverage, using internationally recognised propagation-modelling practices".

ACMA said it was yet to receive any complaints, but that people should contact their provider in the first instance.

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman declined to comment on whether it had received any complaints.

A federal government spokesperson said that the "new standard is not set and forget".

"The government expects ACMA to continue to improve and refine coverage maps and related rules over time, including to reflect new technologies, experience and data as well as ensuring telcos' compliance with the standard," they said in a statement.

'Complex problem'

The maps were a common frustration heard by volunteers with the advocacy group Better Internet for Rural, Regional and Remote Australia (BIRRR).

Co-founder Kristy Sparrow said the mobile network was designed as a voice network and the capacity reflected in the maps could be under strain as people increasingly use data-heavy features such as streaming.

Ms Sparrow said the maps, which Optus, Telstra and TPG publish separately, were also "quite confusing" because the search function and the colours and shading to denote different levels of service were different on each.

"What we would really like to see is not the carriers releasing a map, but having a national map where you can actually go on and have a look and is the coverage usable at that actual location and is it with Optus or Telstra or Vodafone," she said.

"We know in the UK, and in the US and in New Zealand, they all have coverage maps from all the carriers as one national map."

Ms Sparrow encouraged people to shop around for better deals and could contact BIRRR for advice if they were still having trouble.

She said the Regional Tech Hub website also provides information, although the hub was defunded in the latest federal budget.

Ms Sparrow said there was "no silver bullet" when it came to solving the issue of connectivity in regional areas.

"It's a very complex problem and it involves consumers being aware and informed of that, and telcos as well, making sure that their consumers are aware and informed," she said.