The Battle for Mobile Coverage ramps up as Telstra and TPG go head to head

You might recall last year TPG/Vodafone fired shots across the bow of the Telecommunications industry with claims that Telstra had been overstating their coverage area in Australia by a seriously large amount. Well all that has lead to a review of the way telcos represent their coverage with the Australian Communications and Media Authority set to publish new standards for mapping this month, to come into effect from the middle of this year.

TPG claimed that Telstra had been exaggerating their coverage for over a decade, potentially by as much as 40 percent – at the heart of this claim was an assertion that Telstra’s maps used non standard equipment to measure coverage and that the Telstra coverage maps showed areas of coverage that a basic mobile phone could not in fact acheive.

One thing led to another and now the ACMA is ready to rule. Their draft guidelines for how maps should be represented look to have the telcos indicate four different levels of coverage on their maps – standardised across all the networks.

Those levels are:

• Good
• Moderate
• Usable
• None

Here’s how Telstra says that will look across the Dubbo region of NSW.

Telstra argues that the pink “Usable” area should be seen as “reliable” coverage, while the yellow “No Coverage” should be seen as “Basic but usable outdoor service”.

And, key to Telstra’s claims are that people looking at coverage maps will be told they have “No coverage” when in fact their phone works.

TPG – with all eyes focussed on Telstra, claim otherwise.

In their submission to the ACMA, they use examples to show where Telstra shows “Full Coverage” on their “Maximise your coverage” maps.

They’ve done real-world tests in these areas.

Telstra claims that customers use coverage maps to do things like Plan Travel, access Safety and make decisions about which Telco to choose for coverage.

They also outline a large volume of calls, texts and data being used in areas which would – under the new guidelines – fall into the “no coverage” areas.

It’s a fascinating debate really.

Because Telstra want’s to maximise the scale of their coverage on maps, and their claims of coverage publicly, while TPG appear to be coming at this from a realistic expectations point of view.

Would you rather be surprised, perhaps relived that there is coverage in a place you didn’t expect it, or annoyed and frustrated that the map said it was “green” but in fact you’re struggling to get a call out?

If the current ACMA standards come into place, Telstra is set to lose around 1 million square kilometers of coverage, almost the size of NSW. If you look at that “Unique full coverage” map above, all that blue will disappear.

But, if it disappears from a map on the Telstra website, it doesn’t mean you won’t be able to call Triple Zero if you’re there, it’s just a representation that you frankly can’t guarantee the same.

These are big issues that regulators need to sort out as we head toward a “Direct to Cell” satellite future, where we’ll have coverage everywhere, but what services – Triple Zero most notably – are available at that location are unknown.

Personally, I’d err on the side of under promise and over deliver on the mapping.