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In short:
The Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Senate Committee has handed down its interim report into the shutdown of the 3G mobile network.
The committee recommends the minister for communications forces Telstra and Optus to delay the shutdown of 3G network.
What's next?
Some rural Australians are calling for mobile phone towers to be built as Telstra and Optus attempt to get customers to update devices.
A senate committee has recommended delaying the shutdown of the 3G mobile phone network across Australia, as rural residents fear they will be left without coverage.
The Barber family are fifth-generation wool growers at Metcalfe in central Victoria, 115km north of Melbourne.
Surrounded by dense bushland and hills where granite rock stands like giant statues, the family uses mobile phone carrier Telstra and only gets 3G mobile phone connectivity.
As they face a switch from the 3G to 4G network, Jess Barber said she was worried they would not have the phone coverage to provide emergency warnings and run their business.
"I would describe our connectivity to mobile coverage as extremely patchy," she said.
"In areas where there is none, 3G is our predominant mobile coverage; in some areas, it's black spots."
Committee calls for minister to force delay
The Senate Committee for Regional and Rural Affairs and Transport References has been investigating the issue.
It recommended Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland meet with Telstra and Optus to have them delay the shutdown of 3G until she could be satisfied the 4G network provided equal or greater coverage than 3G.
Failing that, the committee wanted the minister to impose conditions on the company's licences requiring them to meet its recommendations by the end of this month.
It also wanted the government and industry to show they knew how many devices would not be able to connect to the mobile phone network when 3G was shut down, and phone carriers to make all "reasonable efforts" to contact those customers.
The minister for communications has been contacted for comment.
Ms Barber said the government and industry needed to build more mobile phone towers before even considering switching off the 3G network.
"We just don't have reliable enough mobile phone coverage. We're very, very concerned that we won't have any coverage when they switch it off," she said.
"The funding is just not here to support that [building more mobile phone towers] so we're going to probably go from bad to very bad."
Aging network
Nearly 200,000 Australians are relying on 3G coverage and the country's two major mobile phone carriers are giving away mobile phones for free ahead of the impending shutdown.
The senate inquiry heard more than 450,000 Australians could be affected by the switchover.
Telstra has already delayed its rollout by a month, from the end of July to the end of August, while Optus is planning to switch off 3G in September.
A Telstra spokesman said the phone carrier acknowledged the issues raised in the inquiry.
"We are closing 3G to free up resources and spectrum," he said.
"Any delay to the closure delays our ability to fully utilise 4G and 5G in regional Australia, leaving customers with an aging network."
The spokesman said it had set the closure date of the 3G network nearly five years ago and had been communicating with customers and stakeholders about the need to prepare for it ever since.
Optus' vice president for government and regulatory affairs, Andrew Sheridan, said the phone carrier acknowledged the senate report and its recommendations.
He said Optus was reaching out to customers "who need to act".
Mr Sheridan said switching off the 3G network meant Optus could then repurpose its resources to provide a better quality 4G network and broaden its 5G coverage in regional areas.
On day two of the inquiry, Optus' head of new products, Harvey Wright, told the inquiry that as of the middle of July, there were 176,000 handsets at risk of being disconnected when the 3G network was switched off.
In a post online, he also wrote: "In a very small number of areas where 4G coverage is not yet available, rest assured, we will not be shutting off 3G until a replacement 4G service is available."
'Not going to be a cheap fix'
Submissions closed last week on the federal government's three-yearly review of regional telecommunications, which in the past has led to the Mobile Black Spot program and the national audit of mobile coverage.
The Barbers continue to worry about being cut off.
"We are challenged by the geography of the land," Ms Barber said.
"It makes providing good mobile phone coverage challenging, but it's 2024 — we should be doing better than we are doing.
"We've got to keep 3G until they can provide better coverage for 4G.
"Unfortunately, it's not going to be a cheap fix, it's probably a need for more towers in rural areas and investing in infrastructure that can support rural communities."
Delay the 'only' solution for some
The looming 3G network shutdown is also cause for concern for cotton farming contractor Ashley Smart.
"There'd be no real forms of telephone communication because there's nothing reliable," he said.
"It's a safety concern if there's an accident, but it's also important for general communication."
Mr Smart works on Cubbie Station, a large irrigation property near Dirranbandi in south-west Queensland that covers more than 90,000 hectares.
He has 23 mobile signal boosters installed on a range of farming equipment from utes to tractors at a significant cost.
Ordering and organising mechanical parts, fuel, seeds and fertiliser are all day-to-day activities that sometimes require phone service from a remote part of the station.
While he has been able to organise satellite internet from his ute via Starlink, there is still only limited communication available.
Mr Smart said he would welcome a delay to a shutdown of Telstra's 3G network.
"It's the only solution out here, we have no other real phone signal at the moment," he said.
"I can't see any good reason to remove it."
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