OPTUS COMMITS $6.5 MILLION TO IMPROVE MOBILE COVERAGE IN SOUTHERN RIVERINA/HUME REGIONS

Optus today revealed plans to spend $6.5 million to further improve mobile coverage across the Albury-Wodonga region over the next two years.

Optus’ Mobile Access Planning Manager Vin Mullins said, “Optus will build 8 new sites to add depth and breadth to network coverage and improve customer experience across the region for residents, businesses and visitors.”

The new sites in the Albury-Wodonga region will be built at locations in Beechworth Central, Corryong Town, Bright West, Eskdale, North Leneva, Cromer Hills Holbrook, North Albury, and Jindera.

Today’s announcement includes a $2.5 million investment already made by Optus in the Southern Riverina and Hume regions in the past 12 months, to build new sites in areas including Bonegilla, Baranduda, Walla Walla, Bowna, and upgrade existing towers to increase network capacity.

“A regional hub like Albury-Wodonga relies on a strong mobile network to support its thriving tourist and manufacturing industries, as well as key local services such as universities and hospitals.”

“Optus is committed to improving mobile coverage for regional customers, and in the past two years we have built 123 new towers in regional areas, with a further 200 sites to go live in the next 12 months. These network enhancements will expand Optus’ 4G data coverage, increased download speeds and improved mobile voice quality for the Albury-Wodonga region,” Mr Mullins said.

Cathy McGowan AO MP, Independent Member for Indi, said, “This is a very welcome announcement, covering parts of Indi where communities have been lobbying for a long time for better mobile phone coverage and carrier choice. I congratulate Optus for recognising the value of investing in regional telecommunications.”

Sussan Ley MP, Member for Farrer, said, “Improving mobile communications is vital for our region and this is a very important commitment from a major telco. Adding or upgrading services improves data capacity on the local network and also drives competition among the providers, and that is very good news.”

Optus Regional Investment

• The Optus mobile network reaches 98.5% of the Australian population, and its 4G Plus network reaches 96.1% of Australians.
• Since 2009, Optus has invested $6 billion in its mobile network.
• Optus has built more than 510 new towers over the last two years, including 123 in regional Australia which service around 2.8 million regional customers.
• The Optus network handles over 45 million calls and 80 million SMS messages each day and carries 6,000 terabytes of data each week.
   

Optus investment map – Albury

Media contact:

Lindsay Clement-Meehan/ Sophie Cotterill

Optus Corporate Affairs

(02) 8082 7850

media@optus.com.au