LEADER of The Nationals David Littleproud is calling for Universal Service Obligation (USO) reform, as a mobile phone outage in the Western Downs continues to cause havoc.

David Littleproud

Mr Littleproud said a full shutdown and outage of mobile phones over the past week and a half is frustrating and worrying locals, due to a Telstra rebuild of the main tower serving Dalby, a town of over 15,000 people.

It is likely to continue until the end of the day on Sunday, June 29.

“The current mobile phone outage is a serious and even life-threatening issue, because people in need of emergency services cannot make calls right now,” Mr Littleproud said.

“There is no obligation for Telstra to work swiftly but if this was happening in a suburb in Sydney, Telstra would have fixed it by now, so it proves the Government needs to step in on Telstra.

“I call on the Labor Government to review the USO immediately and extend it to physical phone infrastructure. The Western Downs phone outage proves the need for USO reform.

“We have had no upgrades in the area – nothing at all – and regional communities deserve better.”

Mr Littleproud added the current situation also showed why The Nationals couldn’t sign up to the Coalition Agreement until the USO was part of its four key policy commitments.

“The Nationals will always fight for the USO, making sure regional communities can actually call emergency services when they need help. The Nationals could not walk away from regional Australians.

That’s why The Nationals chose to prioritise regional lives, ensuring better regional mobile phone coverage is part of the Coalition’s plan.

“We need reform around the USO, to extend it and use the technology that has evolved, to cover more than 1500 mobile phone towers that were built under the Coalition. Without reform to the USO and a minimum standard for mobile and internet access, lives are at risk
every day in regional Australia.”

Source: David Littleproud