Outback residents fed up after Telstra outage cuts off tourist hotspots

When the communications network in Australia’s most iconic Outback tourist town goes down, so too do the businesses that keep the community pumping.

Birdsville, and neighbouring Bedourie, both located about 1,500 kilometres north-west of Brisbane, are looking for their own solutions after a recent three-day Telstra network outage nearly crippled their communities.

Triggered by a hardware issue, the towns were left without mobile services, landlines and internet connection.

ATMs, EFTPOS machines and mobile fuel bowsers were also down.  

“Customers couldn’t get money out to pay for things, they couldn’t use their cards. It meant our aviation fuel bowser was also out because that runs off an app,” Birdsville Hotel operations manager Darren Collins said.

“We also had issues communicating with (airline) Rex to have our regular freight delivered.

Left to their own devices

The outage last weekend also posed challenges for Bedourie police and medical personnel trying to communicate, according to locals. 

“There is one house here that has a satellite connection. The nurse and police have been using that to communicate,” said Bedourie resident Nadine Phyllis. 

Doug Cooms is the manager of the Simpson Desert Oasis in Bedourie, which provides fuel, accommodation and meals to customers.

He said the outage took a financial toll on his business as he resorted to unreliable forms of trade.

“Everything slows down. We have to write down everyone’s licence number and registration and then chase them up later for payment, which not everyone is obliged to easily hand over.

Services out for too long

In a statement on Tuesday, Telstra said it was still working on repairs in Birdsville. 

“A hardware issue affecting landline and mobile services in Bedourie and Birdsville was repaired [on Monday night], restoring the majority of services.”

Bedourie publican and mayor of the Diamantina Shire Council Robbie Dare said he was disappointed with the time it took for phone connections to be restored. 

“It definitely was not fixed quickly enough,” he said. 

Government tables plans for improvement

Enhancing the quality of mobile, landline and internet connections to rural parts of Australia has long been debated across all levels of government.

Recently, the 2021 Regional Telecommunications Review Committee released a report with 12 recommendations made to the federal government.

The report suggested increased maintenance was needed on network infrastructure in regional and rural communities and better coordination was required between federal and state governments. 

It recommended more emphasis be placed on bolstering networks against natural disasters and that more robust technology was needed to service remote areas.

Minister for Regionalisation, Regional Communications and Regional Education Bridget McKenzie tabled the report in parliament last week.

But residents in Bedourie and Birdsville aren’t holding out for drastic improvements any time soon.

Following the weekend’s outage, locals are coming up with their own back up plans.

“We sat down and spoke about a contingency plan that we are now going to put into place so that if anything like this happens again, we will be able to continue to trade,” said Mr Collins.

“One of those ideas is looking at trying to trade via a satellite on the roof here,” he said.