New or upgraded mobile base stations for region - Silicon Coast

Kin Kin, Belli Park, Maleny-Kenilworth Road between Conondale and Kenilworth, and Dulong are set to receive new or upgraded mobile base stations under the Federal Government’s Mobile Black Spot Programme.

Round 1 of the Programme will deliver 499 new and upgraded mobile base stations across regional and remote Australia – 429 Telstra base stations and 70 Vodafone base stations. The locations to benefit under Round 1 of the Programme were announced on 25 June.

The new and upgraded base stations will provide new handheld coverage to 68,600 sq km and new external antenna coverage to over 150,000 sq km, and over 5,700 km of major transport routes will receive new handheld or external antenna coverage.

There will be handheld or external antenna coverage to all or part of around 3000 of the black spot locations, nominated by Australians during the public consultation phase, as not having mobile coverage – almost half of the 6221 black spot locations originally nominated. This is because many base stations will serve multiple nominated black spot locations.

Telstra Area Manager Kris Carver said Telstra would commit $165 million and had worked with Victorian, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmanian and Western Australian State Governments as well as multiple local governments to attract tens of millions of dollars in targeted additional funding. 

“In total, this represents an investment of over $340 million in regional telecommunications and combined with our networks expertise will bring new and improved coverage to hundreds of communities across the country,” he said.

In addition, as part of Telstra’s proposal, it will deploy up to 200 4G small cell sites in towns around Australia where suitable infrastructure is available, with the locations to be mutually agreed between Telstra and the Federal Government. The locations for the 4G small cells are expected to be finalised in the second half of 2015.

Communities can register their interest in receiving a small cell by emailing: [email protected]

The first base stations funded under the Programme will be rolled out before the end of 2015. The rollout will continue for a three year period. The rollout sequence will be determined by Telstra and Vodafone based on various factors, including obtaining local government planning approvals for new base stations.

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