As an out-of-control bushfire raged around Bridgetown, three hours south of Perth, earlier this month, the shire president John Bookless said it wasn't long before both power and phone services were down.
"The town was under serious threat and that's the time when you need to have the best telecommunications you can get, and if that's the best we can get then in this day and age it's pretty pathetic," he said.
The next day, the town of Corrigin, two-and-a-half hours east of Perth, experienced the same problem, according to its shire president Des Hickey.
"The issue that we have locally is that the Telstra tower, if it doesn't have power connected to it, goes down after two to three hours. That's what happened in the fire: we lost contact to people fighting on the ground, very early in the fire," Mr Hickey said.
It comes as the federal government yesterday released its three yearly Regional Telecommunications Review.
The report detailed similar issues occurring during the black summer east coast fires of 2019–20.
It said it would be too expensive to upgrade battery back-up at all phone towers, but disaster prone areas should receive targeted funding.
"In this challenging landscape, we argue there is a role for both government and industry to do more to ensure the reliability, resilience and redundancy of regional telecommunications networks," the report said.
"The Committee is concerned that without better interventions, businesses and consumers in regional, rural and remote Australia may not have access to vital telecommunications services when they need them the most."
The Regional Telecommunications Minister Bridget McKenzie said since the black summer fires the government had spent $37 million addressing the issue through its Strengthening Telecommunications Against Natural Disasters (STAND) fund.
"I think on any measure the coalition, with the national party at its centre, has actually delivered regional telecommunications as quickly as possible," she said.
Mr Hickey said he believed his town could benefit from solar-powered back-up to its phone tower.
Landlines cut by 'a third party'
At the other end of WA, in Halls Creek 30 hours north-east of Perth, businesswoman Emma Tierney owns the IGA store.
It is the town's only supermarket and the only place Halls Creek residents can buy their allocation of prepaid power.
When the ABC spoke to Ms Tierney yesterday on her mobile phone, IGA's landline was down, after a flood several weeks ago.
Telstra declined the ABC's request for an interview but in a statement its regional manager in WA, Boyd Brown, said a cable had been cut in Halls Creek by a "third party" and hoped repairs would be finished last night.
"Mobile coverage is not currently impacted, nor are people who have their internet and home telephone services through the NBN," he said.
Mr Brown also said Telstra would "happily" meet the communities of Bridgetown and Corrigin to discuss the power requirements for mobile base stations.
"In regional WA we have more than 900 mobile base stations, and under Round 1 of the STAND program, we have recently upgraded 113 key sites to have 12 hours of battery backup," he said.
"Round 2 is a co-investment program and Telstra has worked with the WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services to identify additional sites that would benefit from a longer back-up power supply."
"We hope an announcement on these sites will be imminent."
