By Jesse Graham
EAST Warburton’s mobile base station won’t be constructed until 2018, leaving residents without mobile phone coverage through two coming bushfire seasons.
Dixons Creek, Steels Creek and surrounds will have coverage by the end of the year, with the tower’s switch-on date delayed until the final quarter of the year.
Yarra Ranges Councillor Jim Child raised the matter of the towers at the end of a council meeting on Tuesday, 11 October and said he was concerned about phone coverage during a catastrophic event.
Cr Child said that NBN services connected to the Warburton area meant that phone lines on connected properties would not work if the internet was not working, such as in a power outage.
For areas in East Warburton, where no mobile phone coverage exists, this would mean properties without power would also not be able to phone for help in the case of a fire, or receive warnings except for those coming over the radio.
“We have storms that can isolate us and we have bushfires that can isolate us,” he said.
“We have to have the digital platform out there, so people can receive the warnings.”
The Mail reported earlier in the year that the East Warburton base station was scheduled for construction in 2017, while the Dixons Creek tower would be switched on in the third quarter of 2016.
The Telstra rollout map now cites the East Warburton base station as scheduled for construction in 2018, and the Dixons Creek tower is expected to be switched on sometime in the last quarter of 2016.
Cr Child said another phone tower, this one based in Millgrove, had been approved by council in January 2015 and was scheduled to be running at the end of October, but had yet to be constructed.
“When you think of it, East Warburton and Millgrove are critical for our digital platform.”
He said a worst-case scenario in the fire season would be a fire travelling from Healesville through Don Valley to Launching Place, then heading through to Warburton with a wind change.
“That’s what happened in 1939. It’s primed to happen again (and) our community has to be prepared,” Cr Child said.
Asked why the tower construction was delayed, a Telstra spokesperson said “many factors” affected the rollout, which was run under the Federal Government’s Mobile Black Spot Program.
“The logistics of deploying construction parties and delivering materials across regional Australia, and specifics around each site, such as obtaining land access approvals, and the presence and proximity of existing infrastructure including road access, power and transmission, all have an impact on the timing of the roll-out and the dates by when individual sites can be completed,” the spokesperson said.
“Significant work occurs behind the scenes, including design planning, community consultations, the formulation and development of planning applications and working with local councils to get the best outcome for everybody.”
During the last bushfire season, Telstra provided a ‘cell on wheels’ portable mobile phone tower to the East Warburton area, to temporarily address the area’s black spot during high fire danger days.
When asked if Telstra would deploy the portable tower in the coming two bushfire seasons, the spokesperson said they would be used “when needed”.
“In the event of an outage of our infrastructure, we consider a number of factors, such as the impact to the community and the time to restore, in determining the appropriate response,” they said.
NBNCo’s Victorian Corporate Affairs Manager Michael Moore said that in an emergency, telecommunications were likely to not work, even if the NBN stayed connected.
“Where the NBN is affected, NBN will prioritise reconnecting essential services, such as hospitals, fire, police, emergency services as well as community infrastructure such as traffic management, sewerage, power and water utilities,” he said.
“While battery back-up is available, it does not guarantee service availability during a power outage.”
Mr Moore said people who may be affected by the loss of telecommunication services during an outage, “particularly those with medical alarms, fire alarms or lift emergency phones”, to visit www.nbnco.com.au for information on preparing for emergencies and outages.
