Telstra’s North West regional manager Michael Marom posited numerous reasons why residents in Deepwater and the surrounding area have been experiencing degrading service quality over previous years.

One of the most likely, he said, was a significantly increasing congestion on the 3G network.

“It is always challenging because the data usage is doubling every 12 months, meaning that network capacity is always a challenge and it is particularly are challenge when we are talking about large rural areas as well,” Mr Marom said after the meeting.

During the meeting, residents were particularly concerned with making contact in an emergency situation.

Local emergency servicemen Brian Barrett addressed the meeting and asked if the three transmitting towers in the surrounding area were fully operational.

“Numerous times we have been on calls with the Ambulance service and road crash rescue and we numerous areas where we can’t access a repeater,” he said.

“I find it quite hard to understand that we have three repeaters that we can almost see in Deepwater, yet we walk into a building and we have not reception. I would like to ask the question to Michael whether all these repeaters are working and whether than could be raised in power?”

Mr Marom said he would investigate a number of specific issues in the surrounding area, as well as the possibility of implementing a 4G network over the Deepwater and Torrington area.

“What I will do is go back to our network engineering people to check the three towers that service the area, find out if and when we have any augmentation projects to upgrade these towers to 4G and the third thing I will do is check some of the query points with regard to Torrington Road and Stannun and also the repeaters and the capacity of those repeaters,” he said.

“A lot of your 3G congestion is possibly because there is a lot more data usage. 4G is specifically data so for people making voice calls, they could possibly have a better signal strength because a lot of that data is now being taken over by the 4G and 4GX.”

Mr Marom said he was pleased with the positive outcomes of the meeting.

“It was a good meeting. It is always good to engage with community groups who have a passion for progressing what they have,” he said.

“I would want to come back within a week to the community and follow up on this. I like to come back to people with answers.”

Mr Marom said providing a consistent service across regional areas was a significant challenge, but said the age-old contention between country and city service was not a contributing factor.

Local residents broached the perception that mobile service was inequitably targeted towards metropolitan areas, but Mr Marom said it was a misconception.

“It is not a debate. Unfortunately there is a perception—country people will tell you that they are paying more because the city folk are getting a better deal. City folk will say ‘Why am I paying so much, because I’m subsidising the country’,” he said.

“The reality is we have one price and the reason why we have one price is because every Australian deserves to have the best possible service at the best possible price.”

Residents in Deepwater and Torrington have been eager to see a resolution to the issue, as social preference continues to move towards mobile usage.