Beachside bliss with boost to mobiles at Toolakea
Residents and visitors to the Toolakea area are benefiting from new and improved Telstra mobile coverage as part of the Federal Government’s Mobile Black Spot Program.
Regional General Manager Rachel Cliffe said the new base station would improve upon Telstra’s existing coverage north of Townsville.
“Switching on this new base station will provide customers with better voice and data services, benefiting local residents and people travelling through the area,” Ms Cliffe said.
“It will provide improved 4G mobile coverage and address coverage gaps around the Toolakea Beach area.
“This base station is an ideal solution for providing new mobile connectivity to better connect our community.”
Regional Communications Minister, the Hon Mark Coulton MP welcomed the activation of the Toolakea Beach tower as the latest boost to connectivity in North Queensland.
“The Government’s priority is to provide Australians with access to reliable communications, which is why we have committed $380 million to the Mobile Black Spot Program to improve mobile coverage and competition across regional and remote communities,” Minister Coulton said.
“This base station will give the local community and visitors to the region access to better mobile coverage, helping them to stay connected with family and friends, access education services, and conduct business. This is one of more than 1,200 new mobile base stations funded under the first five rounds of the program, with over 925 of these base stations now on air, including 190 in the state of Queensland.”
Member for Herbert, Phillip Thompson, said it was important that people across the broader Townsville region had access to mobile communications.
“Communication is key not just for the local economy and business community, but for personal use and during natural disasters,” Mr Thompson said.
“We should be doing everything we can to ensure people can pick up a signal when they need one and that’s why we’ve invested in this tower.”
The Toolakea mobile base station was jointly funded by the Federal Government and Telstra under the Priority Locations Round of the Federal Government’s Mobile Black Spot Program.
Under the Mobile Black Spot Program Telstra, in partnership with local and state governments and the Federal Government, has delivered:
- More than 770 mobile base stations across Australia, stretching from Monkey Mia in Western Australia to Weipa in Queensland;
- More than 200,000 square kilometres of new or improved coverage nationally;
- More than 5,800 kilometres of new or improved highway coverage along some of Australia’s busiest, longest and most isolated highway trucking and tourism routes; and
- 220 Telstra-funded small cells that are delivering coverage to those harder to reach areas with smaller populations.
There have been more than 350 million calls sent or received, over 54,000 calls to Emergency 000 and 36,000TB of data downloaded and 3,500TB uploaded using Telstra’s 3G and 4G networks at new black spot sites across Australia.
After the latest round five of the MBSP is completed, Telstra will have invested up to $290 million and built more than 880 new sites to improve coverage for regional, rural and remote areas around the country.
ENDS