The 3G mobile network shutdown will impact a broad range of devices used in rural Australia, ranging from medical and farming equipment to emergency communications and surveying gear, a senate committee has been told.

The network, which has been a backbone of productivity in regional areas for decades, is scheduled to close on August 31 this year to clear the airwaves way for 5G services.

However, key stakeholders yesterday told the Senate’s regional and rural affairs committee that the total shutdown should be delayed allowing more time for users to migrate away from the network.

A phased approach

NSW Government chief digital and technology officer, James Pickens, yesterday repeated his call for a phased approach to the 3G shutdown citing concerns over the ability of the replacement network to serve existing 3G users. He said he was not satisfied with efforts by telcos during the last three months to ensure that 3G users wouldn’t be left behind.

“No, I’m not satisfied about that. I believe that there is still more work to be done in terms of guaranteeing the device types that are concerning where they can’t make triple-0 calls, for example, have been sufficiently moved from networks. And I also haven’t seen enough confidence to suggest that the coverage footprint is going to be equivalent to that offered by the [mobile network operators] so far.

“If that can’t be provided, then we believe that the shutdown should be done, as I’ve mentioned previously, in a phased location-by-location, approach – where that’s appropriate to do so – so that they can de-risk [the closure] as much as possible,” Mr Pickens said.

4G coverage concerns

National Farmers Federation deputy chief executive officer Charles Thomas said that the organisation was monitoring 4G mobile coverage to compare against assurances of equivalence given by operators.

“It goes to the importance of the complaint resolution process that’s in place after the shutdown. That’s something we’ve been pressuring (mobile operators) quite hard on, to make sure that they’ve got dedicated teams and pathways stood up so that where people identify what they perceive as differences in coverage before and after that they’ve got a way to quicky get that looked at and hopefully, resolved,” Mr Thomas said.

At stake for farmers is the usability of expensive 3G agricultural, IoT equipment which can currently only be upgraded to 4G and faces redundancy should the 5G network supersede it, NSW Farmers representative, Debra Charlton said.

Mr Thomas added that telcos had less visibility of farmers relying on the 3G IoT equipment as they did handsets, leading to technology replacements challenges.

Scope of health device risk unknown

The National Rural Health Alliance told the committee that its members were concerned about the cost of upgrading devices, including personal health and safety monitors, after the 3G shutdown.

The alliance’s chief executive, Susanne Tegan, said that the organisation was still trying to understand the cost of converting the devices to 4G due to complexity of the device supplier ecosystem.

The committee said it would put those questions to Telstra in a further hearing in Canberra scheduled for today.