{"id":508803,"date":"2026-02-28T02:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508803\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T02:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:42:10","slug":"regional-mobile-phone-users-lament-lost-service-as-complaints-spike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508803\/","title":{"rendered":"Regional mobile phone users lament lost service as complaints spike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ian Bowden remembers the ghosts of his mobile phones past.<\/p>\n

First it was the “brick” of the 1990s, then he owned a flip phone that picked up service even in his workplace basement, and now he uses a smartphone that he has had for 18 months.<\/p>\n

But while the handset technology has dramatically improved over the decades, he cannot say the same for his Telstra reception.<\/p>\n

“Ten years ago, I’d sit in my lounge room at home and I’d have full service,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Now \u2026 most of the time I have one bar, sometimes I have none.”<\/p>\n

Based in Newborough, near Moe in Victoria’s east, Mr Bowden has also noticed a decline in mobile service on the drive to Melbourne, less than two hours away.<\/p>\n

He said he had given up on making complaints after dozens of attempts, when he was unable to reach a customer service operator and instead directed to email.<\/p>\n

While he stopped short of making a complaint to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, more than 14,000 other people did during the last three months of the year.<\/p>\n

\"man<\/p>\n

Ian Bowden wants his complaints to be dealt with over the phone. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Tech headaches<\/p>\n

Gippsland-based telecommunications consultant Damian Stock said Mr Bowden was like many other frustrated locals who had “given up” on making complaints about gaps in mobile phone coverage.<\/p>\n

“We’re a mobile business country, we expect to be able to drive [70km] from Sale to Yarram and conduct a business call,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’ve got senior CFA officers who \u2026 can’t do essential work in this time of the year because their phones \u2014 where they used to work \u2014 just don’t work any more.”\"Man<\/p>\n

Damian Stock says mobile phone service has not improved since the 3G shutdown Senate inquiry. (Supplied: Damian Stock)<\/p>\n

Mr Stock said while Australia’s low population density posed a challenge to telecommunications companies, he believed the system was far too confusing.<\/p>\n

He said he was “blindsided” by the introduction of a 5G standalone network to supplement the 5G (non-standalone) network that was first rolled out in 2019.<\/p>\n

Telstra’s website says “5G SA” improves regional service as it is not restricted to areas with 4G access, but requires an eligible phone plan, device, and SIM.<\/p>\n

“Our 5G is now two different flavours \u2026 How does the normal man know that he’s got to check his phone to see if it does standalone mode, check to see if he’s got a SIM that’s been issued since 2023?” Mr Stock said.<\/p>\n

“I’m lucky that I’ve been in this industry for over 45 years and even I’m struggling to comprehend it all.”<\/p>\n

Out of service<\/p>\n

Last year, the federal government announced universal mobile service obligations<\/a> (UOMO) amid Senate committee criticism of the 3G network shutdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The UOMO bill was introduced to the lower house of parliament in November and is yet to progress.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Communications Minister Annika Wells flagged a government review into Triple Zero legislation in the wake of the September Optus outage linked to two deaths<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) Cynthia Gebert has revealed a 41 per cent increase in “no service” mobile and internet complaints in the last quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n

“One of the key drivers of complaints going up relate to reliability issues,” she told Victorian Statewide Mornings.<\/p>\n

“That’s people not being able to call emergency services, people finding themselves without a working phone, and people particularly in rural and regional settings not being able to call anyone.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Cynthia Gebert is concerned mobile “no service” complaints have “almost doubled”. (RN Breakfast: Luke Siddham Dundon)<\/p>\n

Ms Gebert said reliability issues sparked a flurry of calls in the wake of the Optus Triple Zero outage from consumers who had experienced service issues they were worried could lead to failed emergency calls in future.<\/p>\n

She said those concerns were exacerbated by difficult bushfire and flood seasons in Victoria and Queensland.<\/p>\n

“It’s a very real anxiety for people that things aren’t going to work when they need it to,” she said.\"A<\/p>\n

Mark Gregory wants to see stronger regulation of telecommunications companies. (ABC News:\u00a0Patrick Rocca)<\/p>\n

RMIT associate professor Mark Gregory said it was not surprising to see complaints rise during a technology transition like the 3G shutdown.<\/p>\n

He said the universal service obligation bill was a good “starting point” for legislating performance and quality requirements, but should be expanded to include speed, connection quality, information provided to customers, and dropouts.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been calling for that for 15 years now and minister after minister after minister has said ‘look, there’s no reason why we need to do this, no one’s concerned about quality and performance, and there’s no funding to do this,'” he said.<\/p>\n

“As we know, there’s money for all sorts of things, but not the things that consumers are really concerned about.”<\/p>\n

The federal government pointed to $1.1 billion in regional telecommunications investment, including in infrastructure programs.<\/p>\n

“Telco providers must maintain service standards, address disruptions promptly and keep their customers up to date,” a spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“That is their responsibility.”<\/p>\n

Telstra said in a statement the rise in complaints could be attributed to network upgrades, new technologies, and “shifting expectations” from consumers.<\/p>\n

“In many out-the-way spots, we’re the only provider with real coverage,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

“Telstra operates a dedicated Regional and 3G Helpline [1800 990 853] staffed by regionally based teams who understand local connectivity issues.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian Bowden remembers the ghosts of his mobile phones past. First it was the “brick” of the 1990s,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[140432,9539,64,63,99,103930,3977,255184,2717,8056,135924,8419,255183],"class_list":{"0":"post-508803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-3g","9":"tag-5g","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-cynthia-gebert","14":"tag-mobile-phones","15":"tag-mobile-service","16":"tag-telcos","17":"tag-telecommunications","18":"tag-telecommunications-industry-ombudsman","19":"tag-telstra","20":"tag-universal-service-obligation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}