Telstra boss Andy Penn on what needs to be done to improve rural telecommunications

The boss of a major telecommunications company is calling on the Federal Government to improve communications services available to rural and regional Australia.

The Federal Government needs to come to the table and better acknowledge its role in improving the quality of telecommunications in rural and regional Australia, Telstra boss Andy Penn says.

Speaking to The Weekly Times at Beef Australia in Rockhampton last week, Mr Penn, who has served as Telstra chief executive since 2015, called on the Federal Government to be “open to a conversation around the Universal Services Obligation”, which he said was geared around outdated technology, in an effort to improve services.

His comments came after Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said in February that an unreliable Telstra network was the most common complaint to his Queensland electorate, a situation that put lives at risk, possibly making government intervention necessary.

Mr Penn acknowledged that while telecommunications “in a country as large and as sparsely populated as Australia is incredibly difficult and incredibly expensive” the Government needed to come to the party to discuss a way forward.

“It would be fantastic if the Government was open to a conversation around the Universal Services Obligation,” he said. “At the moment we provide communication via the Universal Services Obligation, which is a Government framework and policy, but it is basically dependent on particular technologies

“It relies on copper and it relies on high-capacity network, and the reality is the world has moved on from those technologies and so we need to be able to re-prosecute that obligation but using different technologies … mobile, satellite, other arrangements as well.”

In his statement in February, Mr Littleproud said “people in the bush are at the wits’ end with Telstra, with landline and mobile outages often lasting weeks”.

He said with Telstra a fully private company “they are obligated under the Universal Service Obligation to maintain standards, but it is clear now Telstra just doesn’t care”.

MORE

ROCKHAMPTON BEEF WINNER MADE UNPLANNED ENTRY

AN INVESTMENT PERSPECTIVE ON AUSTRALIAN AG