Mapped: 77 mobile black spots across the Fraser Coast

Patchy, unreliable and flat out non-existent mobile phone reception in many parts of the Fraser Coast cost one family the life of their father and - incredibly - it is still a black spot 10 years later.

Brendan Lamb says "we are fighting a losing battle", in response to the mammoth number of mobile black spots on the Fraser Coast.

Almost 10 years after he lost his father to a sudden cardiac arrest, Brendan Lamb will always remember how modern conveniences most of us take for granted let his father Graham down in the worst possible way.

Living at Duckinwilla on Duckinwilla Rd, just south of Maryborough, the Lamb family’s landline had gone down and they were waiting on Telstra to fix it.

They were also living in a black spot for mobile phone reception.

Trying to get their landline fixed had been an ongoing battle for Mr Lamb’s parents.

But on the day Graham collapsed in 2014, his family found their repeated attempts to call emergency services on their mobile phones were also futile as their calls just dropped out.

Now, with the issue of black spots once again in the spotlight, Mr Lamb has shared his family’s tragic story to highlight a regional issue that is not just a matter of inconvenience - it is literally a matter of life and death.

While he and his wife Nikki tried to do CPR on Graham that terrible day, they were unable to get clear instructions from emergency services because of the poor phone reception.

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It was hard to have faith in modern technology when it wasn’t there when you most needed it, Mr Lamb said.

“We were fighting a losing battle,” he said.

“It’s been nearly 10 years since it happened to us and it’s still no better.”

Reception in the area, including Torbanlea and Howard, was vital, Mr Lamb said, especially if there were crashes on the nearby Bruce Highway.

The story of what happened to Brendan Lamb’s father is a reminder that calling 000 is no guarantee of help on the Fraser Coast, where there remain 77 black mobile phone black spots where even emergency calls are impossible. Photo: Valerie Horton / Fraser Coast Chronicle

According to a Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service spokesperson, Hervey Bay Hospital has also been affected by black and brown spots of mobile reception and internet coverage, impacting the connectivity capacity for patient, staff and community devices.

Many patients and their loved ones have expressed frustration at the lack of mobile and internet coverage, despite the hospital having public telephones available in the Emergency Department and Medical Ward corridor of the main hospital building, as well as with the staff at reception.

“Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service is not in a position to address these issues or increase connectivity capacity directly, as this responsibility falls under the scope of individual telecommunications providers,” a WBHHS spokesperson said of the Fraser Coast mobile phone black spot at the Hervey Bay Hospital.

Seashells on Urangan manager Freddie Whitaker has also complained of a “very awkward” mobile connection.

Within the office, his phone, which is with Telstra, gets no reception.

“When you stand outside the building, you get one bar, two if you are lucky. I have to get up from my desk and go outside just to answer a phone call,” Mr Whitaker said.

While the black spot is understood to be localised, the poor connection has caused a lot of annoyance for the staff and residents at Seashells On Urangan.

Fraser Coast councillor Jade Wellings has received regular complaints about the lack of mobile connection in District 5, which prompted her to move a motion in council to calling on mobile providers to urgently improve coverage across the region.

Ms Wellings revealed that one half of her home, at Dundowran Beach, was in a black spot.

Deputy mayor Paul Truscott said “it's a challenging situation”.

“As telecommunications comes under the Federal Government, not council, there is little the council can do aside from communicate to the federal members and telecommunications providers the concerns that are raised from our community.”

The Mobile Black Spot Locations Database, which was last updated in 2018, mapped 77 mobile black spots across the Fraser Coast region.

According to the departmental spokesperson for the Mobile Black Spot Program, “the Government has allocated $2.2 billion to regional connectivity in the 2022-23 Budget over the next five years, attributing $400 million to improving mobile coverage and communications resilience under the Government’s Better Connectivity Plan for Regional and Rural Australia.

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Wide Bay MP Llew O’Brien said:

“There are still many locations across the 14,227sq km Wide Bay electorate that need coverage, which is why it’s disappointing that the Labor Government’s Improving Mobile Coverage Round of the program cherry picked 54 sites, with just four of them in Queensland, and none in Wide Bay.”

Wide Bay MP Llew O'Brien says that across Australia, the Coalition Government’s Mobile Phone Black Spot Program leveraged $875 million to invest in 1270 new mobile stations.

Telstra regional general manager May Boisen said:

“We are also building a new mobile base station in Aldershot and a small cell in Scarness to deliver improved coverage and faster speeds.”

Optus said it was committed to improving its coverage and growing its network in areas where its customers needed it and that it had invested $1 billion to improve and expand its regional mobile coverage.

Vodafone did not comment.