Residents and visitors around Brierfield are set to enjoy improved mobile phone coverage following today’s announcement that Optus will install a new mobile phone facility in the area with funding support from the Australian Government.
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Member for Cowper Luke Hartsuyker today (Thursday, December 1) announced that Brierfield was one of two locations in the Cowper electorate to benefit from Round 2 of the Coalition Government’s Mobile Black Spots Program.
“Today’s announcement of two new base stations for Cowper adds to the three base stations announced under Round 1 of the Mobile Black Spots Program,” Mr Hartsuyker said.
“Back in 2012 when I was Shadow Minister for Regional Communications, it became very clear to me that further investment in regional mobile coverage was needed to help fix coverage blackspots, so I launched the Mobile Black Spots Program.
“Since 2013, the Coalition has invested $160 million to improve mobile coverage in regional Australia. This funding has leveraged a further $438 million investment from mobile carriers, state governments, local councils, and other sources, bringing the total investment to $598 million.
“Round 2 of the Mobile Black Spots Program will deliver new or upgraded coverage to 6500 homes and business across 17,500 square kilometres via 266 new or upgraded towers. This includes 1900 kilometres of major transport routes.
“Cowper generally has good mobile coverage, but in the hilly and isolated areas in our valleys coverage can be variable. We all know how important telecommunications services are in regional Australia, which is why investment through the Mobile Black Spots Program is so necessary.”
The locations for round 2 of the Mobile Black Spot Program were selected following an appeal to the public to nominate black spots.
These locations were entered into the national map which was provided to mobile network providers to assist them to develop funding applications.
These were assessed against the program guidelines by the Department of Communications and the Minister accepted the Department’s recommendations without change.
The newly announced base stations will be constructed through the usual planning and development processes.
The locations of all of the 266 base stations can be found on the national map at www.nationalmap.gov.au.
More information about the Coalition Government’s Mobile Black Spot Program can be found at www.communications.gov.au/mbsp.
