WITH Redland City located less than 30km south-east of the Brisbane CBD, Federal Member for Bowman Henry Pike said that when it cames to federal support for mobile reception, the region had been “completely ignored”.
Mr Pike has slammed the Albanese Labor government for not allocating funding for the Redlands in the latest rollout of the Peri-Urban Mobile Program (PUMP), an initiative to improve mobile reception in disaster-prone areas outside of major cities.
Mr Pike said that with the support of “thousands of local residents”, he had been given commitments from service providers for 40 upgrades across Redland City’s mainlands and islands.
“We’ve done our part working with telcos, but when it comes to federal support, the government has let us down,” the MP said.
In a statement, the Federal Government said there were a large number of high-quality proposals for the PUMP program, and that “the department recommended that funding earmarked for a future round be brought forward to support a larger number of mobile solutions”.
The government accepted this recommendation, but Redland City did not make the cut. Mr Pike claimed the Redlands “ticked every box for the Peri-Urban Mobile Program”.
Greg Hartay-Szabo, a Russell Island resident and ex-chairmen of the Moreton Bay Combined Islanders Association, said residents on Redlands’ islands had been vocal about mobile connectivity issues.
“Some have been worse off since 3G got turned off, as 4G and 5G is a weaker frequency. Telstra has been the default (carrier) but it usually has one bar or less, so calls abruptly end sometimes,” he said.
Mr Hartay-Szabo said that from his experience, Optus provided better connection on Russell Island.
According to data provided by Mr Pike, Optus had committed to 28 upgrades across the Redlands, compared to 11 by Vodafone, and one by Telstra.
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