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Phone reception black hole in the heart of Brunswick
Optus says network issues will be fixed by early-April
Elle Marsh
MEHDI’S voice crackles over the phone, the line cuts out for a few moments before I can hear him again. He sounds like he’s a million miles away, instead of five minutes down the road in the middle of Brunswick.
Mehdi Mashhoutpour is speaking to me over the phone from Brunswick Baths where his workplace has been plagued with bad phone reception and data issues for over eight months.
The 43-year-old professional trainer originally thought it was just a problem with his phone.
“I couldn’t figure out what was going on with my phone. I kept calling Amaysim, which is with Optus,” says Mashhoutpour.
Then he noticed others at the gym were experiencing similar issues. Holding their phones up to the sky, refreshing their webpages over and over.
“To be honest, it’s really frustrating.”
In May last year an existing mobile phone network tower above the Brosnan Centre in Dawson Street was decommissioned to make way for the development of a new apartment complex on the corner of Saxon Street.
Shortly after the tower was demolished, locals in the area who were using Optus’s network started experiencing issues.
Members of the Brunswick Neighbourhood Network Facebook group have been lamenting the bad reception in the area. One member posted: “For the last 3-4 months I haven’t been able to get reception in the gym at the baths. Drives me crazy!!”
“Its absolutely terrible!” another local posted.
A local resident told Brunswick Voice they experienced such poor coverage in their home after the tower was decommissioned that they subsequently switched their phone and internet providers.
Merri-bek councillor Adam Pulford said that when he’s at Brunswick Baths he can’t receive work messages or get enough data to view his gym program.
“Lots of people have reported a similar experience, which is particularly frustrating for people who work at the gym or nearby at Balam Balam Place.”
Pulford said he had also received reports of coverage issues with the Telstra network.
At Pulford’s instigation, the council sought an explanation from Optus late last year. The telco replied in January.
Optus said that in response to the decommissioning of the Dawson Street network site, it had commissioned two new sites. The first site is at Barkly Square and came online last August. The second site is to be installed on an existing telecommunications tower on Syme Street.
Optus advised Merri-bek Council that the Syme Street network site was due to be completed by the end of February. However, steps to fix the network issues have been delayed.
Optus Local General Manager Jayson Grool said the new infrastructure is now due to be activated by the end of March or early-April.
“Unfortunately it was meant for February but we’ve had to push it out,” said Grool.
Grool said that some customers experienced reduced coverage and slower data after the Dawson Street tower was decommissioned.
“We switched the Barkly Square tower on in August last year and continue those other 5G upgrades.”
Despite Brunswick Voice speaking to several Optus network users who say they’ve reported service issues near Brunswick Baths, Optus — which is still reeling from the PR disaster caused by a network outage last year which prevented people from using the emergency Triple-O service — has not noted these issues in their live “network service status” map.
“We need quality mobile and mobile data coverage across Merri-bek, so the sooner the new infrastructure goes in, the better,” says Pulford.
Back speaking to Mehdi Mashhoutpour over the phone, his voice distorts and digitises as the line sputters in and out. I ask him to repeat himself.
“This affects hundreds of people every day,” he says. “I would love to see this situation resolved ASAP.”
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