Telcos should 'agist' phone towers in the regions, farmers say

There is a growing push from regional communities to make telecommunication companies co-locate towers, allowing infrastructure to be shared between providers.

A federal parliament committee is investigating if multi-carrier regional phone towers would reduce the growing digital divide.

National Farmers Federation telecommunications committee chair and Roma grazier Peter Thompson told the committee there was a simple solution staring the government in the face, and one that farmers used every day.

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"In agricultural terms, they should agist or sublease access," Mr Thompson said.

"It's like when we own our land at home - we lease it out, or jist it out - to different people.

"We've got different operators on the piece of infrastructure and at the end of the day the infrastructure is being used in the most efficient manner."

In the past decade, the government has spent almost $400 million trying to fill the nation's mobile black spots, co-funding more than 1300 phone towers with the telcos. But only 8 per cent of the towers are co-located.

Mr Thompson said if the government was spending the public's money, it was obligated to spend it in the most efficient way possible.

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"The number one thing we can do to reduce waste in government-funded black spot spending is sharing infrastructure," he said.

Despite the potential to co-locate towers, Mr Thompson said telcos immediately dismissed the idea whenever it was raised.

"When we make the suggestion, we're told by the provider they can't make any money out of [the tower] if someone else is on there," Mr Thompson said.

"I personally think that's a cop out. With the right business model there is a return for everyone there."

NFF chief executive Tony Mahar encouraged the government to investigate how other large countries with relatively small populations, such as Canada, had approached the issue.

"There are a number of countries around the world where this happens, and it seems to work, we're not hearing any super negatives," Mr Mahar said.

Earlier this year, Nationals leader David Littleproud and rural independent MP Helen Haines backed calls for mandated mobile mobile roaming in the regions.