Mobile blackouts signal red alert
for emergency workers

By DANIEL CLARKE

27/04/26

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Fears have been raised that Telstra’s increasingly unreliable mobile service on Kangaroo Island risks the safety of triple zero callers. 

 

A number of CFS volunteers spoke to Island Independent last week after a multi-day blackout of Telstra’s mobile services in the central districts left them unable to communicate with fellow crew members.

 

Telstra described the failure as a “software-related issue” at the MacGillivray mobile site that has been resolved but residents from American River to Parndana say service remains poor and has been that way since the shutdown of the 3G service in 2024, placing extra traffic pressure on the 4G network. 

 

The blackout occurred in the same area that a dangerous fire ripped through over 300 hectares of land and threatened Nepean Bay in November last year that firefighters say would have led to major coordination issues without phone connection. 

 

While making clear they weren’t speaking on behalf of the CFS, the volunteers said they relied on mobile coverage to quickly gather crews for call-outs. Any failure of the phone system would delay arrival at car accidents, fires and other rescues. 

 

CFS volunteers are encouraged to carry their issued pagers that don’t use the Telstra service whenever they are available to respond to call-outs. However, the pagers only alert to an incident and address from the Adelaide call centre. 

 

The responders cannot use them to verify specific remote incident locations or communicate with each other to confirm minimum crew requirements. That vital work is done via texts, group messaging apps or phone calls. 

 

Deputy Group Officer Kayne Davis said ensuring a minimum crew of four but preferably five volunteers was reliant on mobile communication.

 

“There might be 20 or 30 people in a brigade, but often you’re only going to have four or five that actually respond to any one incident,” Davis said. “We are all volunteers, farmers, we’ve got jobs in town and everybody's busy, people with families and kids to look after. 

 

“Calling or messaging to gather the four or five people to run a truck is really how you build a crew aside from that initial pager alert. Otherwise you could arrive at the station and the truck has already left or you’re left waiting for enough people to get there.”

 

For Support Coordinator Rosalie Bell, phone connection is the only way she can ensure a full crew is secured to attend an incident and said that Telstra was the island’s only carrier with wide enough coverage for those living outside of towns. 

 

“We’re relying on the 4G mobile service to speed up our response and share information that helps,” she said.

 

“We need to have enough crew, especially if it's an active fire. We can't just send out a truck with two people. If that happens I get on the phone and start ringing members and asking if they can come. You can't do that if you don't have phone coverage. It’s a real worry.”

 

Bell said during the recent outage she was forced to tell her brigade captain that the five CFS volunteers working at her farm on Springs Road would be unreachable in an emergency. 

 

“That’s a lot of people to lose from the brigade. I had to drive to Kingscote to communicate that.” 

 

Davis and Western Districts Captain Michael Stanton also revealed the CFS issued pagers don’t work in all areas of the island.

 

“There are a couple of pager black spots on Kangaroo Island that are well and truly documented,” Davis said. “The way we'd overcome that is by getting a pager to text message service set up where pager messages actually come through as a text message. But if you've got no Telstra signal, you can’t receive that text either. It’s difficult.”

 

Davis said his main criticism of Telstra was its lack of urgency to respond seriously to call complaints from the dozens of islanders who alerted them to the outage. 

 

“How many people for days and days and days have been saying I've been on the phone to Telstra and they said there's no outage and it must be my phone and I need to update my phone or turn it off and on again,” he said.

 

“After hundreds of calls, they still have the audacity to say there's no outage. They will not take ownership of it. There’s a lack of compassion.

 

“How can you tell multiple people that there's no problem? At no point are we aware if Telstra is even sending somebody to look. So you're sitting there waiting in limbo wondering if it’s actually going to be fixed and there's no guarantee. If there was a fire or a massive car accident, there's no guarantee in my mind that someone can even ring triple zero. It goes further than just getting a CFS crew to an incident. Is somebody even going to be able to ring the emergency services? It’s a major concern.”

 

Stanton said Stokes Bay residents are frustrated a new phone tower erected near the community hall in August 2024 has failed to deliver coverage to the north coast as promised. 

 

“We’ve got full bars of 5G on our farms adjacent to the tower and it’s been fantastic but you only drive three or four kilometres in any direction and it drops out,” Stanton said.

 

“That tower was supposed to cover Middle River, Snelling Beach and Stokes Bay. To do that they would have had to put it closer to the coast. It went in and people thought they could rely on it and it didn’t work. It’s amazing to think they would spend so much money on something that big and it really doesn’t cover much.”

 

He said Stokes Bay Beach gets some reception from Marion Bay on the Yorke Peninsula when there is a northerly wind rather than the new tower on the island. 

 

“We were told about 15 years ago by a guy from Telstra if they put up a decent phone tower it could cover a 50km radius. Well if that was at Parndana it should be able to just about cover coast to coast.

 

"These are million dollar towers and you'd really think you could get better bang for your buck.

 

“It's always been a major issue on the island but when you start to rely on the coverage in a certain area and then that disappears or changes like it has been lately then that’s a constant battle and a major frustration. It’s a widespread issue. We’re starting to trial Starlink which might be better.”

 

Telstra said it takes the “reliability of communications for emergency responders very seriously and any concerns about connectivity can be raised through emergency service channels so they can be investigated promptly”.

 

“We work closely with agencies to understand their operational needs and support communications resilience wherever possible,” the spokesperson said. 

 

“As with any emergency or network disruption, there are a few options which may be available including satellite to mobile (STM) messaging. We saw the CFA volunteers, and the local community, use this service during the Victorian bush fires earlier this year to stay in contact.”

 

When questioned about the Stokes Bay tower, the spokesperson said “like all mobile sites, coverage can vary depending on factors such as terrain, distance from the tower and local surroundings”. 

 

“Mobile coverage isn’t a simple on-off experience - signal strength can change as people move around, go indoors, or as conditions around a site change. Coverage maps and day-to-day experience don’t always line up exactly - they reflect different levels of service rather than a hard boundary where coverage suddenly disappears.

 

“Telstra continues to assess site performance and explore practical options to strengthen coverage and resilience where feasible.”

 

A CFS spokesperson said the organisation was aware of the recent mobile outage on Kangaroo Island and that it was committed to ensuring volunteers have access to reliable communications systems so they can continue protecting their communities.

 

“Paging remains the primary method for notifying and dispatching volunteers, so mobile coverage issues do not affect our operational dispatch processes,” the spokesperson said. 

 

“While supplementary mobile-based applications can assist with situational awareness, they rely on commercial network coverage and are not used as primary dispatch tools.

 

“Volunteers are encouraged to carry their issued pager when they are available to respond. As a volunteer organisation, we recognise that our members balance CFS duties with family, work and business commitments and there is no expectation that they will be continuously accessible.

 

“We also work closely with telecommunications providers, including Telstra, to improve coverage and reliability wherever possible.”

 

Davis said emergency incidents at D'Estrees Bay and Snelling Beach in recent years highlight how lack of mobile coverage can delay help arriving.

 

“Other tourist hotspots like Pennington Bay and Western River Cove are also dead spots and we know incidents have happened there and will happen again," he said.

 

“Kangaroo Island is not a huge area. Surely a couple of good towers can sort the whole island out. But it just seems to not be on the list of important things to do for Telstra.”

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