Residents in the West Australian tourism hub of Busselton say frequent dropouts in phone and internet service are an unacceptable impost on public safety and trade.<\/p>\n
The situation left a family in a life-threatening situation and unable to call triple-0 as a fire swept through their property earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Jane Bennett lives on a rural property within the City of Busselton, about 230 kilometres south of Perth and a 20-minute drive to Busselton’s CBD.<\/p>\n
In January, her husband Owen Bennett was faced with the daunting task of battling a fire on his own, unable to call for help because of an unplanned outage of a nearby phone tower.<\/p>\n
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A fire crossed Vasse Highway in Yoganup on January 16 this year. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“He’s in direct line of sight to the tower, which is about a kilometre away, and he’s calling triple-0 and it doesn’t connect,” Ms Bennett said.<\/p>\n
“He was in panic.”<\/p>\n
Ms Bennett said her husband managed to find a signal on a neighbour’s property and it was a “miracle” their house was saved when firefighters arrived an hour later.<\/p>\n
She said when they asked Telstra about the unplanned outage they were told it was caused by a severed fibre-optic cable at Bridgetown, 80 kilometres away.<\/p>\n
Telstra told the Bennetts the cable was “cut due to nearby third-party excavation works”.<\/p>\n
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Owen Bennett battled the fire on his own in a desperate scramble to save his family home. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
As Australia’s national operator of the triple-0 service, Telstra is required to have fail-safe systems and processes for emergencies.<\/p>\n
“In our case, this all failed,” Ms Bennett said.<\/p>\n
A Telstra spokesperson said residents were informed of outages on its website.<\/p>\n
“We are very saddened to hear of any damage or loss due to natural disasters,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
“In times of mobile outages, it’s important that households have access to a second form of connectivity as a back-up \u2014 this could be fixed NBN, satellite or landline services.”<\/p>\n
Effect on local business<\/p>\n
Businesses in the heart of Busselton said they wanted better telecommunications, saying it was important to cope with demand during peak holiday periods and the dropouts were a public safety issue.<\/p>\n
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Victoria Yuen says the situation is embarassing. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Busselton Chamber of Commerce chief executive Victoria Yuen said connectivity was a big issue hitting business bottom lines, particularly in the busy summer months when pressure on telecommunications was at its peak.<\/p>\n
“The main issues are dropouts of phones,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Dropouts when people are trying to work from home. Payment systems not working.<\/p>\n
“If people can’t tap and buy a coffee from a coffee shop, they can’t run their business.”<\/p>\n
Ms Yuen said she had been pushing for improved telecommunications infrastructure in Busselton for years but the issue was largely overlooked.<\/p>\n
She said it was embarrassing that business owners had to walk to the end of their driveway to get a decent phone signal.<\/p>\n
“We can’t just keep saying, ‘Oh it’s OK. This is what happens,'” Ms Yuen said.<\/p>\n
“No, that’s not a decent enough excuse anymore.”<\/p>\n
Need for infrastructure<\/p>\n
The City of Busselton is home to more than 40,000 people, according to the 2021 census, and is considered one of the fastest growing regional cities in WA.<\/p>\n
Busselton Mayor Phill Cronin said phone and internet coverage had diminished in the area over the past five years, which he believed was due to inadequate telecommunications infrastructure.<\/p>\n
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Phill Cronin says connectivity issues in the area are concerning. (Supplied: Phill Cronin)<\/p>\n
“I’ve heard sometimes they [telecommunications companies] are unable to put towers up because they can’t get the power to the towers,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a whole-of-infrastructure issue that really does need to be addressed.”<\/p>\n
Cr Cronin said the council had received a number of reports from concerned residents about the issue.<\/p>\n
“We’ve seen unfortunately during some recent fires where one of the towers was down, the DFES emergency warnings weren’t being sent out and people weren’t even able to make triple-0 calls,” he said.<\/p>\n
“That is a major concern for our community.”<\/p>\n