Mobile Black Spots program to bring remote areas back to earth

WIDGEE residents, treated like extra-terrestrials ever since the advent of the mobile phone, are about to be welcomed back to Earth.

SAT PHONE: A Gympie ambulance officer tries to communicate on the satellite phone at a Widgee crash site. Picture: Craig Warhurst

WIDGEE residents, treated like extra-terrestrials ever since the advent of the mobile phone, are about to be welcomed back to Earth.

For years, areas less than 25 minutes out of Gympie - and not only at Widgee - have been classified as "remote."

Residents, visitors and emergency service workers have had to rely on satellite phones if they wanted any sort of mobile service.

But soon, even ET will be able to phone home more easily, thanks to the latest phase of the federal government's Mobile Black Spots program.

Mobile phone coverage is forecast to improve dramatically in areas like Glastonbury, Kin Kin, Widgee, Woolooga and the Maryborough-Biggenden Rd, as a result of recent Black Spots program advances.

Gympie's federal Wide Bay MP Warren Truss yesterday announced that the $100 program will deliver five new or upgraded mobile base stations in the near-Gympie area.

He acknowledged campaigning by residents and The Gympie Times over many years.

"Smoke signals would be better than a mobile phone out here," said Widgee business owner Lloyd Martin in February 2009.

And he was not the first of the last to make the observation that their district appeared to be not quite part of the new high-tech Australia.

At Langshaw, residents complained that they only had service at Muster time, their convenience and safety being apparently less important than that of Muster visitors.

"People living in these areas, especially Widgee, have been campaigning for mobile coverage for years and I am delighted that my lobbying has at last been successful," Mr Truss said yesterday.

"These upgrades will be delivered through the spending of more than $3 million, including $864,000 from the federal government.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Communications Minister Paul Fletcher, said that the outcome of the Mobile Black Spot program had significantly exceeded expectations.

"The program has delivered substantial competitive benefits, with both Telstra and Vodafone granted funding and other providers able to co-locate.