THE widespread power outages across Gippsland have impacted mobile phone services in many communities as well, and as Jenny Gray, Telstra Regional Manager Australia East Victorian revealed on ABC Gippsland Radio this morning, some district still don’t have mobile phone reception.
It’s all to do with the short-life of back-up batteries at mobile phone bases, which draw the same amount of power as 10 houses.
If the power is off long enough, mobile reception starts to fail and there seems to be no solution, at this stage, for providing enough back-up power for the mobile phones to stay on.
While reception has been returned to 90 per cent of impacted areas, some towns in South Gippsland continue to be impacted.
Here’s what Ms Gray said on ABC Gippsland Radio this morning:
“We've made really good progress overnight. We've effectively halved the number of remaining affected mobile services and now, with mobiles, it's more than 90 per cent recovered.
“So, for example, we've managed to bring up places like Boolarra, Poowong, Yarragon and Tyres.
“We still have a lot of work to do, though. We have people on the ground across the state working to get everything back online as quickly as possible, and we know in Gippsland it's been a particularly tough few days.
“So, there's still a lot of power outages going on that are affecting our sites. We're continuing work in Strzelecki, Dumbalk, Fish Creek, Hill End, Jeeralang Junction and Outtrim, and we expect to see further restoration throughout the day.
“And to those people in communities that are still affected, we're working as quickly as we can to get the services back up and running.”
But don’t expect a discount or payout for the inconvenience. Telstra doesn’t do that.
