Michelle Rowland (Minister for Communications)
The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts is looking for proposals to conduct a national audit of mobile coverage.
Aiming to identify mobile coverage black spots, the Department is looking for proposals for up to five years and is expected to be delivered by a modular approach after previously going through a request for information (RFI) process.
According to the Department of Communications, the process will include an initial proof of concept via a pilot, followed by the audit itself.
The Department is also looking for additional mobile coverage data, collected either by crowd-sourcing or from other audits.
“This audit will help identify mobile black spots and capacity issues where local experience doesn’t reflect predictive maps, allowing us to better target investment and policy options that help people get – and remain – connected,” said Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland.
The RFT is open for submissions until 15 November.
The audit is part of the federal government’s $1.1 billion Better Connectivity Plan for Regional and Rural Australia from the 2022-23 Budget. Other measures from the program include a $10 million increase in funding for round three of the Regional Connectivity Program (RCP) to support First Nations people in Central Australia and the $50 million Telecommunications Disaster Resilience Innovation (TDRI) program.
