00:00 Deborah McGee can see the Telstra phone tower from her property at Mount Moriah in central
00:07 Queensland but for a fortnight she hasn't been able to access any services.
00:12 We can't call out, people can't call in, can't access internet, emails or anything like that
00:18 using the telephone network which is the Telstra network.
00:22 The community and several suburbs near Agnes Water had their mobile phone service cut for
00:27 almost two weeks following a storm in late December.
00:31 It took until New Year's Day for a technician to be able to access the base station and
00:36 make repairs.
00:38 Even fully restored, service is minimal.
00:41 Yeah, rubbish, so if you want to try and ring out here, well, yeah, no hope.
00:46 You've got to crawl on top of the roof to try and get service.
00:49 I understand that we're a small community but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be receiving
00:55 the same quality service.
00:56 Here in the main street of Lomie, the Telstra network is showing between one and two bars
01:03 of 4G service but as soon as you drive away, that can drop out completely.
01:09 Local businesses are suffering too, unable to access FPOS or internet.
01:15 Whenever there's a minor storm or something goes wrong, we lose it and it's not a quick
01:19 fix for us out here.
01:21 Under the universal service obligation being reviewed by the federal government, the Telco
01:26 is only required to provide Australians access to landline and pay phones.
01:32 Should there be performance standards and should mobile be added to USO and also should
01:39 broadband?
01:40 Many of Telstra's base stations were knocked out by severe storms across Queensland last
01:45 month.
01:46 There are calls for emergency mobile roaming to be made available to keep people connected
01:51 during natural disasters.
01:53 Deborah Magee says she'd like to see the network strengthened too.
01:58 In the meantime, she's also paying for satellite internet.
02:01 I've put things in place to make sure that if we have an emergency here, I've got a backup
02:06 plan.
02:07 I shouldn't have to do that but I have because I can't rely on Telstra.
02:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]
