Nationals Member for Page Kevin Hogan together with the Minister for Communications Mitch Fifield have today switched-on a new base station in Clunes, part of the Turnbull Coalition Government’s $220 million Mobile Black Spot Programme.
“This new mobile base station in Clunes will bring a much-needed boost to mobile coverage in the area, providing benefits to emergency service operators, businesses, and residents,” Mr Hogan said.
“Another base station in Hernani is also due to go live in coming weeks and in total, 16 new base stations will be built in Page under Round 1 of the Mobile Black Spot Programme, with Round 2 providing further opportunities for new mobile coverage in Page.”
Minister Fifield said a re-elected Turnbull Coalition Government will, in addition to the 16 new base stations, build four new base stations in Nammoona, Ramornie, Yorklea, and Kyogle under a third funding round of the programme.
“The Coalition Government understands the importance of mobile coverage in regional and remote areas of Australia, which is why we have allocated $220 million to three rounds of the Mobile Black Spot Programme,” Minister Fifield said.
“Despite being in Government for six years, Labor did not spend one dollar on fixing mobile black spots in regional Australia.”
Round 1 of the Mobile Black Spot Programme will deliver almost 500 new and upgraded mobile base stations nationally in regional and remote areas, providing mobile coverage to some 3,000 publically nominated mobile black spots.
This represents the largest one-time increase in mobile network coverage delivered by a single public funding programme in the history of mobile communications in Australia.
Base stations to be built under Round 1 will provide new handheld coverage to 68,600 square kilometres and new external antenna coverage to more than 150,000 square kilometres, and more than 5,700 kilometres of major transport routes will receive new handheld or external antenna coverage.
A map of mobile black spot locations and the locations which will receive new or upgraded coverage under the Programme is available from http://nationalmap.gov.au/
