NIMBYs may be slowing Victoria's planned mobile phone tower roll-out

The government has revealed that while the $540 million program - aimed at providing better mobile and broadband coverage - began in 2021, it's only 30 per cent complete.

The government hopes to complete Connecting Victoria by 2026 - but telecommunications specialist Paul Budde Consultancy chief executive Paul Budde said that could be optimistic.

"I have come across situations whereby, based on fierce opposition from the community, the tower was not put up - quite often it is two or three people in a smaller area who are directly affected, while the rest of the community have no problems," Mr Budde said.

Such issues often lengthened the planning, and construction, process, he said.

"It might take three or four years to get some of these issues solved," he said.

"Quite often it is 'not-in-my-back-yard', environmental issues or things like that - nowadays communities are very vocal and that sometimes makes it very, very difficult to come to some sort of consensus."

He said he thought it would be difficult to reach the target by 2026 but once issues were resolved, towers could be built quite quickly.

Government Services Minister Gabrielle Williams said Connecting Victoria had delivered more than 600 projects, including upgrades of 230 towers from 4G to 5G and installation of more than 200 towers in bushfire, flood and storm-prone areas.

"We are delivering more reliable mobile coverage and faster internet across the state - not only for work, study and leisure, but also for accessing information and keeping in touch with loved ones during an emergency," Ms Williams said.

RMIT University School of Engineering associate professor Mark Gregory said he wasn't too concerned about the seemingly slow roll-out.

"There are three aspects, the budget allocation, the interaction with the telcos and, of course, the planning process - I would anticipate you would see a program like this to start slowly and then ramp up, towards the end," Prof Gregory said.

"If we were to look at a normal process, we are half way through, so at this stage I wouldn't be concerned about the delivery time.

"However, if we got into the middle of next year, and the number of deployments hadn't risen to 60-70pc, then yes, you would get quite concerned."

Financial pressures might also cause the government to slow down the building of towers, he said.

Farmers say they're switching to the Starlink satellite service or urging those seeking upgrades to keep the pressure on the government and telecommunications companies, to get a better service.

Ecklin, Vic, dairy farmer Simon Craven has been campaigning for upgraded mobile phone infrastructure in the region since the St Patrick's Day fires of 2018; he finally received it six months ago.

He said he'd been told it could take 10 years to get a tower operational.

"It's a massive improvement, based on what the tower is intended for - the rest of the network is still pretty ordinary," he said.

The only reason it had not taken 10 years was because he had kept the pressure up on the authorities, he said.

"I can see it can take 10 years, they ended up using some of our equipment to do this tower, if you were waiting on contractors and things like that, it's all just at snail's pace," he said.

He owns an earthmoving company, so was able to do some of the works for the tower installation.

"It took longer than they thought, getting the foundations, and power - there is a fair bit involved in it, I guess," he said.

Other upgrades on the existing network were still required, with many farmers in the area switching to satellite service Starlink.

"That's the only reliable solution, for many people," he said.

"They were great to me, I suppose they had to be, because I kept calling them out when they weren't.

"I have told other communities, don't expect it to happen for you - if you want it, you have to go and get it."

Joe Fedele and wife Monica run Three Rivers Angus, producing Angus cattle on four properties at Eskdale and Running Creek, in the north east.

He said despite promises, telecommunications in the area had not improved.

"There was some talk of putting a tower up, an Optus tower, I believe in the Kancoona area, and another one so they could work in unison - I'm not sure that has gone to plan," he said.

"Telecommunications aren't that great, most of us in the area have given NBN the flick and gone to Starlink - nothing has really change."

He described Starlink as a "game changer", although it could be patchy when it came to phone coverage.

"In terms of uploads and downloads, we are getting better speeds than what people are getting in major cities," he said.

"There is no longer 3G and since its gone, that little bit of reception we did get is gone as well, so things are a lot worse than what they were.

"I don't think the mobile reception will improve, we had bushfires in 2009 and we are still in the same position as we were."

The reality was "the runs are just not on the board, from a telecommunications perspective - there is a lot of talk, a lot of funding, a lot of promises, but the pattern we are seeing up here is nothing gets done".

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