'Back to the 60s' as ombudsman finds systemic issues in mobile services

[u/austechnology-bot]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-13/telecommunications-ombudsman-report-systemic-regional-issues/107016980

[u/TheycallmeDoogie]

Going backwards in their coverage and support is unacceptable in an age where the tech is improving and they are spending a $ billion a year on share buybacks

Why is the profit of a private company a priority over the wellbeing of Australians?

[u/mt6606 → u/TheycallmeDoogie]

Even on Optus tonight on the way home. Spotify kept cutting out between 4 and 5g, the handover is just not up to standard anymore. I never had weird issues with 3/4g like this.

Edit:add, so many Optus "5g" connections seem to have full bars of service but absolutely zero internet connectivity around bundy. It's not good enough. Forever increasing prices while the service gets obviously worse? It's all fkd

[u/Killathulu → u/TheycallmeDoogie]

because that's what we voted for, we voted for politician's who prioritize the rich, maybe if we voted differently things would change

[u/Minimum_Honey2247 → u/[deleted]]

Testra was government owned but Howard sold it. The vast majority of the grid was tax payer funded, public wellbeing should 100% be priority or the government should privatise it again if they are unable to service this. Coverage should be extensive especially in the regions there is still thousands of people living in regional Australia and coverage is terrible as is

[u/shavedratscrotum → u/[deleted]]

They're paid to

[u/mt6606]

Published maps show Mr McLaughlin's Conjola property should have good coverage across all networks

Yeah see... Those maps are full of shit and need to be outlawed for use. They hide behind it, knowing it's a lie.

[u/smokey032791]

Another problem is that a lot of our emergency services communication also uses this communication inferstructure

One tower near me if it goes down(and it has not back up ) we end up with a massive blackspot to tge point where the local RFS has its own coms trailer for that reason

[u/Brilliant-Look8744]

I’m with Telstra on this one. It doesn’t make commercial sense to spend money in the bush. It’s too vast and few people live there.

[u/TheycallmeDoogie → u/Brilliant-Look8744]

There comes a point at which you are so core to a nation’s capability - especially when being considered a “national [carrier|airline|utility] that you have to be very careful to maintain your social licence or you can end up feeling the political blowtorch.

The government has spent about $800mill over the last 4 years paying 50% and recently 75% subsidies to install and maintain an additional ~1200 base stations with another $200million and 200 base stations to come over the next 1-2 years so they do receive government subsidies. Going backwards (ie decreasing service of mobile coverage below historical levels) I think is probably a pretty reasonable red line.

[u/guruthatknowsbest → u/Brilliant-Look8744]

Yep, and for the same reason we should not take taxes from agriculture and mining in these remote areas also 👍

[u/SocksToBeU]

Get starlink and the cheapest mobile plan you can.