Australia's Department of Communications has revealed that one telco is using diesel generators to provide power for base stations under the federal government's mobile blackspots program, while another is storing its backup batteries "out in the environment" rather than in a shed where they belong.
"One of the carriers has about 40 base stations on the blackspot program where they are using diesel generators and have been for a long time," Assistant Secretary of Regional Deployment for the Department of Communications Lachlann Paterson told Senate Estimates this week.
"It's not ideal, but we've tried to focus on getting those base stations to deliver a service, while we wait for the mains power to get connected."
Telstra told ZDNet that it is using such generators to power "a small number" of its sites "in the interim" while they await mains power as part of a focus to provide mobile coverage to regional areas as soon as possible.
"Telstra understands how important mobile coverage is for all Australians, and is building more than 650 base stations under the federal government's mobile blackspots program," the incumbent telco told ZDNet.
ZDNet understands that only a handful of Optus' base stations are running on generators, with the telco also making use of solar power and batteries depending on location, while Vodafone confirmed to ZDNet that all of its mobile blackspot sites have battery back-up power rather than diesel generators.
Optus had last month said the government would be funding the cost of fitting each new blackspot site under round three of the mobile blackspots program with 12-hour battery backup[1] capabilities for use in the event of a power outage.
According to Paterson, this is costing an additional AU$1