Finding collaborative ways to fund improvements to mobile infrastructure services across regional Australia will be the focus of the public hearing in Launceston tomorrow (14 April) with one of the nation’s largest telecommunications network operators Optus.

The House Communications and the Arts Committee will also hear evidence from Tasmanian business chambers, councils and community groups on the impacts of unreliable mobile coverage and ideas on ways to improve the reliability in regional Tasmania for its parliamentary inquiry into co‑investment in regional mobile carrier infrastructure.

Committee Chair, Mr Brian Mitchell MP, outlined the majority of mobile infrastructure was not co-located, especially in regional areas. The Committee wants to better understand why the rates of co-location for Australia’s major mobile providers dramatically decline as they move from urban to regional and remote areas.

The Committee will also be seeking Optus’ views on whether co-investment is the best tool to encourage multiple telecommunications providers in regional areas to invest in and share ‘multi-carrier’ mobile towers to improve the range and reliability of their services.