Telstra won’t give up on areas opposing 5G

This is despite small but intense pockets of community opposition to the technology, which has become embroiled in several baseless online conspiracy theories that it spreads COVID-19 or presents other health risks.

Telstra even embarked on an education campaign involving comedian Mark Humphries to rebut the myths in August last year.

Conspiracy-driven opposition

Mr Katinakis said there were “very few” locations still holding out against 5G, and that conspiracy-driven opposition to the technology no longer ranked among the top three barriers of rolling out the network.

Instead, those belong to working through the municipal bureaucracies of the 3700-odd sites where Telstra builds 5G infrastructure, back-haul expansion of 4G systems to 5G, and the availability of gear.

He said the company had worked hard to ensure it was not affected by the global silicon chip shortage that had significantly hit the availability of computer parts and other electronic products.

The worst scenario for Telstra is that the supply of essential hardware for the 5G rollout is unavailable, but Mr Katinakis did not believe this was likely.

“It is unlikely such a shortage will materialise because everyone is looking at alternative supply chains,” he said.

Huge expenditure

Telstra has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to roll out the 5G network, most recently splurging $277 million for a 1000MHz share of the ultra-fast millimetre mobile spectrum in April.

The high bandwidth 26Ghz spectrum has a large capacity, but it can travel only short distances, making it ideal for rolling out 5G networks in densely populated areas such as capital cities in the states and territories.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority will hold another spectrum auction this year, focused on the low-band spectrum that is more suitable to rolling out 5G to vast areas such as in regional Australia.

But Telstra is staring down the prospect of limits on the amount of spectrum it can purchase at that auction because of its existing low-band spectrum slots.

Mr Katinakis said he was “quite upset” about this, and that it would ultimately hurt regional areas.

“We are the largest operator, especially in regional Australia. In most places, we are the only game in town and the only viable way to expand coverage in those areas is low-band spectrum,” he said.

“Imposing limits like that to me makes no sense. We now have to spend a lot more money for no reason or improving the service to customers.”

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from The Australian Financial Review can be found here ***