Telstra to fly 3DR drones into fire, flood zones to monitor phone towers
TELSTRA plans to fly camera-mounted drones into bushfire and flood zones to monitor its mobile phone towers during disasters. Video: Bushfire aftermath
Business
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TELSTRA is forging a new front in disaster management, unveiling plans to fly camera-mounted drones into bushfire and flood zones to monitor mobile phone towers in real time.
The drones will allow the telco heavyweight to monitor its mobile towers across the nation — about 27,000 of them — by remote control.
It is expected to help the group cut costs significantly, ending the need for workers to climb every tower to carry out manual checks.
Telstra says that as well as providing crucial help during natural disasters, the drones will help the group monitor and respond to damage caused by cockatoos.
“One of the most infamous problems is cockatoos chewing through cables and picking holes,” Telstra network chief Mike Wright told Business Daily.
“It lets water in and damages the antenna.”
The drones had been tested in the aftermath of the Wye River fires at Christmas on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.
“In the future, drones will be flown over the fire affected areas to more quickly assess damage to mobile network infrastructure,” Mr Wright said.
The concept came from Telstra engineers on the ground who had to climb the towers daily, he said.
“We have a regular inspection program, but the engineers said, ‘why don’t we send something up to inspect towers and only climb the ones that have problems’.”
The drones would increase the speed of inspections, bolster workplace safety and cut maintenance costs, Mr Wright said.
Telstra licensed drone pilots for each state in Australia early this year and started using them in January.
It will use drones manufactured by US group 3D Robotics that cost about $1800 each and can fly at 88km/hour, up to 121m above the ground.
Typical mobile phone towers are about 20m high while in rural areas they are 50m tall.
Telstra has eight licensed pilots in five zones across Australia.
Test footage of flights in high fire-danger zones shows how close the drones can get to the action.
Communications infrastructure increasingly plans a pivotal role during disasters, allowing people and emergency services to correspond through text messages and calls, and online.
When he became Telstra chief executive last year, Andy Penn said the telco needed to be willing to sacrifice some profit margin in the short term to maintain its “network superiority”.
Its reputation took a hit last month, however, when Telstra’s network was crippled by a brief outage affecting almost 15 per cent of its mobile customers nationally.
Telstra’s mobile division generates more than 40 per cent of group revenue — about $11 billion last year.
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