More mobile base stations are being deployed to address black spots in NSW with work by Telstra on another 18 mobile sites under round two of the Mobile Black Spot Program (MBSP) underway.

The addition of the round two locations to the rollout schedule brings Telstra’s total number of new sites under the program to 577, generating $490 million worth of co-investment in rural and regional Australia.

Telstra Area General Manager Chris Taylor said Telstra was now rolling out new base stations to a total of 18 new sites in NSW under the MBSP.

“We heard the call from locals in rural and regional NSW for more mobile coverage and we have already delivered new state of the art mobile coverage and services in the state under the Mobile Black Spot Program,” Mr Taylor said.

“We’re now dialling up the rollout even further with the addition in our schedule of these extra sites allocated to Telstra under Round Two of the Mobile Black Spot Program.

“Significant work is already occurring behind the scenes, including design planning, community consultations, the formulation and development of planning applications and working with local councils to get the best outcome for everybody.

“We worked closely with the Federal and contributing State Governments to develop the schedule and we look forward to delivering state of the art mobile services to even more communities soon.”

The additional mobile base stations have been added to Telstra’s Mobile Black Spot Site Locator - a tool that lets people search for mobile base stations being rolled out in their area and provides information about expected timing.

According to Telstra’s website, the base station at Woodhill is expected to be up and running this year. 

Mr Taylor said the growing number of communities that are benefitting from improved coverage under the MBSP demonstrated that the current regulatory settings, combined with public and private coinvestment, was the most effective way to continue to expand mobile coverage in the bush.

“The ACCC’s recent draft decision not to impose regulated mobile roaming clearly recognised the overwhelming call from stakeholders and communities in regional Australia to maintain regulatory settings that encourage investment in more coverage and technology upgrades,” he said.

“Through our own direct investment, as well as co-investment, we expect to see up to $1 billion of investment flow to small towns and regional centres across the country over the next five years.”