By our very nature Grey Nomads will generally be older people. Some may have medical problems that can arise quickly and need treatment. I have known people with some serious illnesses that have decided to travel as part of their 'Treatment" regime.
Even Young people can have strokes/ Heart attacks so a reliable mobile phone coverage should be part of what a Telco should provide.
It's no good the head in the sand attitude "She'll be Right" We pay very high fees for our phone services(compared to other Non-Third World Countries)
A decent coverage of the Country should be forced onto the Telcos. They are making some very big profits out of the public and should use some of those profits to cover the country for mobile use.
One point I would like to make though.
Why the hell did our government force new players when they stopped Telstra's monopol,y not make everyone pay for One national Mobile network. Not have as it turns out Optus have their own.
Seems to me that enhancing one National network would have been much better with everyone paying to use the network than duplicating it.
Hi Yuglamron and all. I to use a telephone, mobile or otherwise as a means of speaking to other people. I can text albeit slowly but certainly don't let the phone run my life. If you really want to get fired up about lack of coverage just come for a drive around CQ/N&NWQ/FNQ and Cape York when you will find, unless you are close to a populated centre, your you beaut mobile phone is about as useful as a hip pocket in your underpants. We got used to not having coverage no problem, but in the event of an emergency, medical or accident, we covered our bases by purchasing an EPIRB. A KTE Sat 1 from BCF at, from memory about $250 You register the unit with AMSA the same as you do with a marine EPIRB and as they transmit on 406 MHz in the event of you activating it you will get a fairly quick response. We travel on a lot of remote roads where you have no reception for anything up to 200-250 km and a lot of these roads we share with other Rvers and road trains/heavy trucks. It was after our first experience of this when I thought that, in the event of an accident, how in the hell do you summons help. So while lack of coverage may mean more to some than it does for me I am, hopefully, not in the position where I have to watch an accident victim die due to our crap mobile coverage.
Just read a report that Telstra complained about an Optus ad which said that Telstra cover 99% of the population and Optus Covered 98% of the population
The Optus add showed the figures over a Map of Australia which inferred a geographical coverage. Seems Telstra Cover 2.5 million Sq. kilometres but Optus only 97 thousand.
Seems that Optus lost but did not mean to infer their coverage geographically was only 1% less than Telstra when it was actually less than half.
Still not good enough. The whole country should be covered by one good network, and all Telcos should pay for it. Then each pay for it by the number of consumers each have.
-- Edited by Yuglamron on Wednesday 19th of February 2014 11:16:14 AM
Hi Yugamron and all. Mate I don't think there is any chance of getting much more geographical coverage in the foreseeable future. When it costs the telcos a motza to erect a tower, never mind all the garbage they have to wade through just to get the necessary approvals, it is much more profitable for them to put a tower where a large no of people are going to use it rather than one out n the sticks with few potential customers. We can but hope but I am not holding my breath. Cheers.
