Telecommunications issues are hampering flood rescues and recovery efforts in the New South Wales Northern Rivers region, with Ballina Shire Council mayor, Sharon Cadwallader, saying internet outages and patchy reception were the biggest issue for locals.
Mobile internet coverage is almost nonexistent across large swathes of the Northern Rivers and phone reception is intermittent.
Credit card payments are also unable to be processed, with most businesses only accepting cash. Some have been offering free food as a result, a welcome gesture in towns where supermarkets and shops have bare shelves due to cut off supply routes.
In Mullumbimby, a queue stretched out of the Commonwealth Bank branch on Thursday morning as it opened for the first time since flooding earlier in the week. Tellers were manually recording customers bank account information and limiting cash withdrawals to $500.
Communication issues have meant some families were unable to stay in contact with relatives who had evacuated, access news about road closures or contact insurance companies.
Cadwallader has called on Telstra to set up a mobile phone tower in the region, saying the internet outage is shutting families off from friends and loved ones when they most need to talk.
“We need a Telstra tower now, a mobile Telstra tower,” she said.
“We’re starting to get pockets of power restored, but that [the mobile tower] is the most essential thing, because it’s hampering rescue efforts. And from a community perspective, kids that are holed up, they can’t play internet games, they can’t talk to their friends, their mums and dads can’t talk to their friends.”
Tanya Phillips in Kingscliff said she hadn’t had phone service since Monday and internet since Tuesday.
“We were really in a communication black hole,” Phillips said after having had to leave home to work in Tweed Heads where she has finally been able to get a signal.
“It has been difficult. There’s been family worrying about us,” she said.
Phillips said many people were calling the evacuation centre at Kingscliff to find out news, to check “if dad made it or if mum is there”.
Telstra said most of its sites in Ballina were “still providing some mobile coverage”. It said it was otherwise making progress in restoring mobile and landline services across south-east Queensland and northern NSW.
“We know this a difficult time and we are working to get everything back up and running as quickly as possible and as soon as it is safe to do so,” a spokesperson said. “We have technicians on the ground in areas we can access and we have more ready to go as soon as other areas open up.”
“Many areas are however still inaccessible due to flood waters or are without power, including Ballina.”
The spokesperson said temporary mobile facilities still required power and access to an area before they could be deployed.
Acting chief executive of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, Andrew Williams, said the group’s main concern is that communications outages, particularly mobile, could prohibit people making emergency calls when flood waters encroach.
Williams said the mobile tower’s battery back up can only last for a certain period of time and if operators can’t get in to resupply generators with fuel, nothing can be done until flood waters recede.
Williams believes telecommunications need to be listed as an essential service so that priority can be given to ensure telecommunications be restored as a matter of urgency, backup battery times increased, and priority access to fuel for emergency generators.
The Regional Telecommunications Independent Review occurs every three years.
The 2021 Regional Telecommunications Review report released on 14 February this year emphasised the effects of several natural disasters across the country and that “access to reliable telecommunications services has never before been more important to regional, rural and remote Australians.”
The report noted that in the 2019-20 bushfires, the 2021 eastern Australia floods and Cyclone Seroja, and during the Covid-19 pandemic “regional Australians relied on mobile, landline and broadband networks for real-time information, access to emergency services, contact with loved ones, and resources to support post-disaster recovery”.
For Phillips, who is the main administrator and editor of the community facebook group Kingscliff Happenings (Coojingburra), the lack of connection has made it difficult for her to provide the essential service messages to the community.
“Things change so fast. We need to be putting things up on the site in real time because old news can be dangerous.”
In order to post this week, Phillips said she would gather information from police at the evacuation centre, then borrow a phone with an Optus simcard to text another moderator on the other side of the river who still had internet.
“Everybody was relying on whoever had an Optus phone. Optus seemed to be the only one working. If we could have flipped over and used Optus or Vodafone, services aren’t great but it would have been better,” Phillips said.
Mark Gregory, a professor in telecommunications at RMIT said the current disaster was a perfect example of why the government needs to adopt the recommendation in the regional telecommunications review that they explore domestic roaming in emergency situations.
“If an Optus tower fails, people in that area can use a Vodafone or Telstra tower so customers can still get access to the network, to call for help or be able to contact family and friends,” Gregory said.
He said the government hasn’t yet responded to the report but that the recent flooding “provides strong grounds for the government to accept that recommendation and act on it.”
