Port Fairy is officially in line for an upgrade to its mobile phone coverage with Telstra announcing a project bringing 5G and additional 4G services to the town.
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The Standard reported in July 2021 that the telco had submitted planning documents to Moyne Shire Council outlining its intentions but the company said the plan was now set in stone.
A Telstra spokesman said initial works had already started but the project was still in the "design and planning stage".
He said building would begin once the radio engineers had finalised their plans, likely later this year.
The announcement comes as Port Fairy locals and visitors complained about patchy and slow service through the peak tourist season.
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Port Fairy resident Gerry Dwyer said problems occurred every summer as holiday-makers descended on the small town, greatly increasing the load on the network.
He said the internet this summer had been particularly "erratic". "It has periodically stopped working on our iPads and our phones as well," he said.
"Thursday (January 6) was probably the worst as we were out of action for four hours, which we haven't experienced before."
The Telstra spokesman said the company worked hard to balance peaks and troughs in demand so that services could keep up, but he conceded the holiday season always presented a challenge.
He said the influx in places like Port Fairy could often generate the kind of mobile traffic typical of a medium-sized city in a town that most of the year only required a single tower.
Port Fairy currently has one 3G band, and two 4G bands on its Telstra network. The upgrades will add an extra 4G band and two new 5G bands to the service.
The spokesman said this would help spread the load on the network as well as improve coverage.
South Beach local David Dwyer (no relation to Gerry Dwyer) said he regularly struggled to get phone reception at home.
"If I drive to the Gabbos or The Passage carpark, I have no worries," he said.
If I'm at home there's no chance in hell of them being able to talk to me.
- David Dwyer
But he said at home he couldn't make or receive calls on his mobile, adding that sometimes even the emergency number didn't have reception, which worried him because he suffered from several chronic health conditions.
"My phone starts pinging as soon as I'm out on the street," he said.
He said he had tried to sort out the situation with Telstra, but because of the lack of reception at his house he had to make sure he was out and about in order to receive the call-back from the Telstra technician.
"If I'm at home there's no chance in hell of them being able to talk to me, but they're supposedly giving me a booster," he said.
The Telstra spokesman said the coming upgrades would reduce the likelihood of black spots, and the addition of 5G, with its higher capacity, would radically improve congestion when demand was high.
He said the wheels were already in motion and Telstra would "ensure we keep the community informed when there's more to say".
While Telstra is the dominant provider in Port Fairy, Optus and Vodafone also service the town, with customers reporting similar issues during peak periods.
An Optus spokeswoman said the company had two towers in Port Fairy and the 4G capacity was upgraded in both towers in 2020.
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