Promises of the same, if not better service are failing to convince some rural landholders as Australia’s 3G network is progressively shutting down.
Farmer Jane Porter, who lives at Numinbah in the Tweed Valley in northern NSW, said she used to have decent 3G phone service in her top paddocks but that stopped when a new 4G tower was activated on a nearby mountain.
“Every time they do an upgrade, those of us who live under the mountains get worse coverage,” she said.
Ms Porter said she believed the deterioration in her 3G service was due to the new 4G tower being directed at nearby towns.
“They’re projecting out to Murwillumbah where there’s more people, but because we’re directly under, we lose it,” she said.
Ms Porter said her Telstra home internet service was connected to 3G as she couldn’t get a 4G signal at her house.
But she said it was so slow it could not be used as a phone and the $1,800 booster she had installed made no difference.
Ms Porter said she did not have a copper landline to fall back on, as Telstra stopped maintaining it several years ago.
She said she was advised by Telstra to wait for additional 4G towers to go up in her area.
But he wasn’t convinced that would solve the problem.
“I’ve got 4G now, according to the maps, but it doesn’t work,” she said.
‘Same or better coverage’
All mobile phone users across the country are being transitioned to 4G or 5G to free up bandwidth and provide greater access to data.
Vodafone has already shut down its 3G network and Telstra will follow in June, while Optus will complete the shutdown in September.
Telstra has the biggest mobile phone network in Australia, with 11,302 sites, while Optus has 8,821 sites.
Telstra said customers would get the same or better coverage on 4G when the 3G network was switched off.
Telstra southern New South Wales regional general manager Chris Taylor said more than 98 per cent of the company’s mobile towers had 4G technology, and the rest would be upgraded in the coming months.
“In some cases we’re changing antenna designs and there are software changes in the network that will push that 4G coverage out to the extremities of 3G,” he said.
Mr Taylor could not say what might be limiting Ms Porter’s service in the Tweed Valley, but said 3G equipment was not going on new towers.
“Unless we’ve had a contract that makes us include 3G technology, our new towers have only been built with 4G on them,” he said.
“Once we’ve completed all of the optimization work, our customers should be able to get 4G coverage in the same places they can get 3G.”
The 3G network change means customers with some older mobile phones will need to upgrade.
Mr Taylor said customers were moving rapidly to 4G handsets.
“In fact, the 3G network now only carries about one per cent of our total traffic,” he said.
An Optus spokesperson said the company was committed to providing mobile coverage.
“From September 2024, we will be repurposing our 900 megahertz spectrum nationally to boost the capacity, speed, and reliability of our 4G network and rollout 5G to even more Australians,” the spokesperson said.
But Mr Taylor said the upgrades to 4G and 5G wouldn’t help people in areas where there was no 3G reception.
“This is not about improving black spot areas, but it’s about making sure that people who can access the 3G network will be able to access the 4G network,” he said.
Emergency coverage
Emergency services volunteer Delwyn Wright, who also drives a school bus at West Wyalong in central New South Wales, said she had constant problems making or receiving calls.
“The fear out there is that shutting down 3G will leave a lot of people unable to make calls, particularly during an emergency,” Ms Wright said.
Beef breeder Danny Henderson said he had similar fears.
Mr Henderson said he had multiple issues with mobile service at his farm north of Adaminaby near Cooma in southern NSW.
He said his property was in a 3G black spot and Telstra wanted to shut down his copper landline service as well.
He has switched to a phone run off the farm’s satellite wi-fi service, but says it was unreliable.
“When it’s snowing the satellite services don’t function and when the valley is full of smoke, the satellite signal doesn’t get through,” Mr Henderson said.
Telstra has agreed to service Mr Henderson’s landline to give him a couple more years of back up.
Mr Taylor said Telstra was aware of the anxiety around the 3G shutdown.
“We can understand the fears of what the loss of 3G could mean in regional areas, but the demand for data is growing at about 30 per cent a year, so the change is necessary,” he said.
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