Some of us are living in remote and rural areas and some carrier are not in a position to cater to us as much we would favour.

I deal with this issue a lot and I think it might be time to give people some perspective and scope on the circumstances. I understand the customer loyalty that you wish extend to your favourite carrier. Most carriers will only have a rough idea of their coverage in a certain area. Very remote locations often do not surround a small town or major suburb, in the case of many Telstra Towers between Milmerran and Goondiwindi, much of the infrastructure is scaled for cost effective deployment based on customer demand. Carriers have to keep their costs relative to their customer base, if a carrier is only catering to a few hundred people in a remote area, they need to scale their deployment appropriately. Back haul is expensive, so is ensuring industry hardware is operable 24/7 365, the circumstances are even worse when you have to consider that many towers and exchanges in rural areas are not readily accessible to technicians, with the possibility of several days of downtime.

If there is not enough demand from your customer base in a remote are, then there is not obligation to accommodate you. It is the same reason why some software developers only compile for Windows or Mac OS but may avoid Linux, it is a about responsible delegation of resources.

Licensed Home repeaters with high gain yagi antennas become a very cost effective option if you’re trying to run a business in a rural area and you are within a reasonable distance of cellular towers.

Most regional and rural areas in Australia are largely only covered by Telstra and they own those towers. It costs a premium for other carriers to lease rack space, it also becomes increasingly difficult to establish back haul between towers that you do not own. It has to be powered and it has be near a road that is accessible to engineers and technicians in the event of required upgrade of service problems.

If you are beyond a certain distance from a town, let’s say 600kms on an isolated cattle station, you’re pretty much resigned to the possibility of using satellite and VOIP. The general consensus is you streamline communications based on your infrastructure options. If you are a large enough cattle station with half a million to a million in turn over, you would start see the benefit in investing in key infrastructure to improve you’re ability to liaise with your sales agents, couriers, suppliers and sale yards.

There has been a common declaration for people over the years when they are talking to installers and retailers about their coverage issues. Most of the time people are pretty reasonable, they accept that they are in a remote area and have to make considerations to conduct business and enjoy their livelihood.

On occasion though, there is that one guy who conveys to any company endeavouring to give him their time,
“I am too much of a tight ass to spend $1200-$2000 bucks on a home repeater or a cradle and antennas for my business and I want to keep using a carrier that does not cater to my remote location. I know that is what has been recommended to me, since I am close enough to a carrier’s tower servicing the area to make service effective, but I do not want to resort to spending the money.”

The fact you are close enough to still get a usable service with the aid of high gain antennas and a repeater is a scenario that is seldom readily attainable for other farmers in very remote areas.

“Carrier x does not have the coverage, but my friends have outstanding performance with carrier y without the aid of additional equipment.”

Well you might have to settle for another carrier until things improve. You are running a business, in a rural area. Even if you might pay a bit more of overhead with another carrier, the fact that you can be accessible and competitive counts for a lot more.

Time is not infinite, many of us have lived out in remote areas where companies had to schedule satellite calls to coordinate with suppliers and livestock transport. It takes time to get clearances to erect new towers and it costs quite a premium to build towers and establish back haul for customer services. The fact that a company is willing to spend the money to establish communications in remote areas does suggest they do care about their customer base, they may have market dominance for a period of time, but it might be small price to pay.

As someone who has worked with farmers and graziers for more then 25 years, I would tell you to weigh up whether it is worth dealing with people and companies who make it impossible for people to contact them, I would tell you the market changes, you probably have bills, creditors, family to support, and I would suggest that for a mere few grand of outlay for key infrastructure you will be able to maintain a level of competitiveness and accessibility.

To give you an idea of what an average cellular tower costs
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-31/inverell-estimates-$400,000-cost-for-mobile-phone-tower/5062090

Here is a nice guide for locating towers around Australia
http://onwireless.com.au/step-3a-search-the-acma-radcom-website.html