Regional mobile and Internet users have often received the short end of the stick when it comes to coverage, even though there are plenty of city slickers who would claim they are unfortunate enough to live in black spots of their own.

However, in the modern era, with 3G and 4G networks for voice and high-speed data, the situation has never been better for those in the cities and the regions – unless you were someone in the regions who had great Telstra CDMA coverage and never got it back.

Hopefully such cases are dramatically minimised in 2016, especially with the telcos working to eradicate black spots, with Telstra and Vodafone having received funding back in 2015 to deal with regional black spots, as reported in iTWire at the time. 

Vodafone also revealed early last year that it was installing 70 mobile towers as part of the Mobile Black Spot Programme, also reported at iTWire, with this new list of 32 base stations over and above that list of 70. 

However, as you’ll see in a moment, Vodafone’s chief strategy officer, David Lloyd, is still advocating for better outcomes for regional customers, so it’s clearly not all perfect just yet.

So, what has Vodafone announced this morning?

The aforementioned planned addition of 32 new mobile sites in regional areas across NSW, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia, at a cost of over $9 million dollars, with NSW getting the lion’s share of the new towers – the full list of where each tower is going is listed at the end of the article.

Vodafone’s chief technology officer Benoit Hannsen said the majority of the new sites would be operational by the end of 2016, with all to be on-air by the end of 2017.

While this means some regions have a wait of over a year and a half for that new base station to be installed, at least it’s on the way, with most to be switched on by year’s end.

Hannsen said: “Vodafone is committed to increasing coverage and choice for customers in regional Australia, and we’ve identified 32 sites which will build on our growth in areas outside the major metropolitan centres.

“Many customers living in regional and rural Australia don’t have access to reliable coverage, choice of provider or both, and we’re determined to drive change.

“Over recent years, we have invested billions of dollars in our network to deliver improved access to fast, reliable mobile services, and we want to offer more Australians the coverage and competition they need and deserve."

The 32 new locations are on top of the 70 sites Vodafone is building as part of round one of the aforementioned Mobile Black Spot Programme in New South Wales, Tasmania, Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria.

Chief strategy officer Dan Lloyd said Vodafone would continue to advocate for better outcomes for regional customers in the telecommunications policy and regulatory space.

“With the Federal Election campaign now underway, we’re reminding both side of politics of the importance of reliable and affordable 21st century telecommunications services in regional Australia," he said.

“It’s crucial that whichever party wins the election ensures the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into the current Universal Service Obligation (USO) arrangements leads to meaningful change which benefits customers.

“We think the $300 million in funding provided to Telstra every year to maintain an outdated copper network and payphones in regional areas could be much better spent.

“If a permanent Mobile Black Spot Programme was established, potentially using a portion of those USO funds, the number of regional areas to benefit from increased coverage and choice would increase substantially.

“We’ve also put a proposal to government to buy, at market price, some of the unsold 700MHz spectrum which would allow us to extend our network further, bringing the coverage and choice customers in regional areas need.”

Vodafone advises that the 32 site locations are:

New South Wales (19): Coffs Harbour Park Beach, Coffs Harbour CBD, Coffs Harbour West, Toormina, Coffs Harbour Industrial, Coffs Harbour Jetty, Tamworth showgrounds, South Tamworth, West Tamworth, Taminda, Tamworth Golden Guitar, Coffs Harbour North, Berrigan, Yeoval, Cudal, Tallimba North, Rushes Creek, Bendemeer and Kootingal.

Queensland (7): Bundaberg East, Bundaberg North, Svensson Heights, Bargara, Elliots Heads, Burnett Heads and Drillham.

Western Australia (2): Carrabin, Burracoppin.

Tasmania (4): Myrtle Bank, Scottsdale, Campania and Ouse.