... claims Mobile Phone User Group.
The Minister's Press Release of 5th February "Regional Phone Coverage Maintained" yesterday avoided the real issue on analogue mobile phones, according to Boyd Munro, President of APUMP. The measures announced do not guarantee that analogue service will be retained in even one square inch of Australia, whereas the plain fact is that there is no sound technical reason to close any part of the analogue network. What the Minister should do is protect the interests of ordinary Australians and get down to hard negotiations with the digital phone companies, telling them that they're going to have to face up to analogue competition, like it or not. But instead of that he's decided to protect the interests of the digital phone companies, and tell ordinary Australians that their analogue phones will be made useless, or nearly useless, at the end of next year. That is being done for one reason only - to provide revenue for the digital phone companies. Look at Vodafone's latest annual report, for example:
"The analogue network used by [our] competitors, to which approximately 2.5 million customers subscribe, is scheduled to be closed progressively between 1997 and 2000. Vodafone intends to take its share of those customers forced to migrate through this closure. Vodafone had 274,000 customers at 31st March 1997"
In short, Vodafone (not Vodaphone) has only been able to sell its services to 274,000 people in a competitive market, and is now licking its chops as the government's policy delivers almost 10 times that number into its jaws.
"APUMP has members all over Australia who are very worried by the threat to analogue mobile phone service", claims Munro. They want to know if they will have mobile phone service after the 1st of January 2000, and the government won't give them clear answers. The Minister's Press Release is long on generalities but devoid of specifics. Here are some examples:
"APUMP member P, who lives in Brighton, Victoria. The burglar alarm in his home is programmed to dial his mobile phone number, so he has an analogue phone to ensure that there is the best chance the alarm will reach him because analogue has the best coverage. Minister, will Member P be able to use his analogue phone on 1st January 2000? Will his burglar alarm signal still get through?
"APUMP member C lives near Crookwell, NSW. A digital base station was recently erected near Crookwell but its range is too short to reach Member C's farm. Computer simulations show that an analogue base station would cover his farm very well. Telstra says that the decision not to install analogue service in Crookwell was made solely because of government policy. Minister, on what date will member C get the mobile service he would already have had were it not for your government's mistaken anti-analogue policy?
"APUMP member H is a businessman in South Melbourne. He changed over to digital, and found that his phone bill skyrocketed because the digital signal does not go through buildings well. As a result, many calls that he used to answer on his analogue now get diverted to his digital phone's voicemail. As a result he pays for the diversion to voicemail, he pays to retrieve the messages from his voicemail, and he pays to ring the person back. He's going to change back to analogue just as soon as his digital contract expires. Minister, will he still be able to use his analogue on 2nd January 2000?
"APUMP member M lives in Melbourne and needs a hearing aid. He cannot use a digital mobile phone because they interfere with hearing aids. Minister, will APUMP member M still be able to use a mobile phone in Melbourne on 2nd January 2000?
"APUMP member W is a contractor from Wudinna, South Australia. He is highly dependent on his analogue mobile phone to run his business. Minister, will Member D be able to use his analogue mobile phone in the Wudinna area on 2nd January 2000?
"And I myself depend on analogue to get cover at my property Ward's Mistake near Armidale, NSW says Munro. Armidale has both analogue and digital service, but the digital signal stops at the speed limit signs and there's another 80km before you get to Ward's Mistake. Minister, will I still have mobile phone service at Ward's Mistake on 2nd January 2000?
Everyone who travels around regional Australia with mobile phones knows that the digital coverage in any one town cuts out at about the speed limit signs, whereas the analogue signal goes on and on and on. This is known to the engineers as well. Digital is a short-range system designed for Europe's crowded conditions. Digital coverage in Australia will never come close to that of analogue because our population density is so low."
APUMP eagerly awaits a clear statement of the government's policy on this matter. There is great concern amongst mobile phone users at present, and this concern could be put to rest by a very clear statement of the government's intention. The tragic thing is that there is absolutely no reason to close the analogue network down anyway. Both systems could continue side by side for many years to come. The decision to close down the analogue network is a political one which was completely mistaken, as the Minister himself admits. It's no good for him to blame the previous government's now, 2 years after taking over the portfolio. It's long past time for him to correct the basic mistake instead of pretending that it won't hurt - when it so clearly will.
It is a scandalous waste of Australia's resources that funds are to be spent installing new short-range digital base stations to replace existing analogue base stations. 90% of Australia is still without mobile phone coverage of any kind, and those funds should be spent on extending the total coverage, not on replacing analogue coverage with digital.
Analogue users should be quite clear on one thing - the Minister does NOT guarantee that analogue service will be retained anywhere at all. All he has done is said that it will be retained in areas where Vodafone agrees to that! What a dereliction of government responsibility. The simple fact is that no part of the analogue network ought be closed down. Yet the Minister is allowing Vodafone, which operates a digital- only network, to decide where the analogue network remains and where it does not. This is an outrageous insult to Australian analogue users and a shameless dereliction of the government's fundamental responsibility to govern.
True, the government is threatening to whip Vodafone with a feather by saying that if it does not agree to the retention of AMPS, then Vodafone will be forced to provide equivalent digital coverage. Such a requirement would be easily contested by Vodafone, because it is simply impossible to provide digital coverage which is equivalent to analogue coverage. Few know this better than Vodafone, which operates both kinds of networks in its home country (Britain). The High Court would quite rightly come to Vodafone's rescue were the Minister to impose a license condition requiring Vodafone to do the impossible. APUMP has nothing against Vodafone, which negotiated very shrewdly with the government and won a very advantageous license agreement, namely that Australia would be the only democratic country in the world to make it a criminal offence to operate an analogue network after the end of next year. All APUMP says is that the government should face up to the fact that it signed a bad contract, and determinedly but honourably negotiate an end to that contract. But at the end of the day, Vodafone paid just $140m for its license, only 6 years ago. Our own government is now planning to scrap infrastructure and equipment worth between $3,000m and $5,000m in order to avoid a lawsuit from Vodafone. It's high time to get to the negotiating table with Vodafone and bring that agreement to an honourable end so that Australia's analogue users are not penalised.
For further information contact Boyd Munro (018 22 0047) or APUMP on 02 9555 9300.
The text of this Press Release is available on www.apump.com together with the text of the Minister's Press Release, a transcript of the Minister's Doorstop about the Press Release, and APUMP's comments on both.