New rules force Telstra to shrink coverage maps by 1 million square km

Telstra will be forced to strip about 1 million square kilometres – an area larger than NSW – from its mobile coverage maps under new government rules that reject the telco’s campaign to preserve its inflated network claims.

Communications Minister Anika Wells on Tuesday announced the new industry standard, developed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which for the first time sets uniform signal-strength thresholds for how telcos advertise their coverage to consumers. The proposed changes were flagged by this masthead earlier this month.

“There are longstanding problems with the quality and comparability of mobile coverage maps published by the telcos, and the government is putting a stop to this mess,” Wells said.

Under the standard, which takes effect on June 30, all three mobile network operators – Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom – must publish coverage maps using four standardised tiers: good, moderate, basic and no coverage. Any signal weaker than -115 decibel-milliwatts (dBm) will be classified as no coverage.

Telco giant Telstra had lobbied for a weaker cutoff of -122 dBm, arguing its network remained functional at that level and that the stricter standard would erase coverage used by 1.5 million customers each month, including areas where 57,000 emergency calls are made each year.

Every other major player rejected Telstra’s position. TPG Telecom, Optus, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the peak consumer body the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network all backed the -115 dBm baseline, consistent with international precedents including Ireland’s -115 dBm standard and the United Kingdom’s even stricter -105 dBm threshold.

An Optus spokesperson said the company welcomed the ACMA’s determination, saying the new standard would give consumers and communities the ability to confidently compare mobile service reach across providers. In its February submission, Optus had outlined that it did not believe consumers could achieve reliable, usable coverage below -115 dBm.

A TPG Telecom spokesperson said: “The ACMA says coverage should mean your phone works.”

“Telstra wants coverage to mean your phone might sometimes show a bar but probably can’t make a call.”

The fight comes as submissions to the ACMA consultation from emergency services, farming groups, state governments and community associations paint a picture of coverage maps that have long promised connectivity that does not exist in practice.

The Central Highlands Volunteer Ambulance Association warned that relying on optimistic predictive modelling at weaker signal strengths could create life-threatening delays when emergency responders believe they have usable coverage that fails when needed. The National Farmers’ Federation meanwhile said its members had consistently reported that their lived experience did not match what providers claimed.

The Mt Tomah and Berambing Community Association in NSW also lodged a formal complaint with the competition watchdog alleging Telstra’s published maps constituted misleading and deceptive conduct. The group conducted in-field testing and found that what Telstra described as adequate coverage was, in many cases, wholly inadequate and some sites had no usable signal detected.

The ACCC warned in its submission that the absence of consistent, transparent mapping standards risked a competitive race to the bottom, where carriers inflated coverage claims through modelling changes rather than actual network investment.

TPG Telecom’s own drive testing across more than 20 regional Queensland locations where Telstra’s maps showed full coverage found engineers could not make a basic phone call with a standard smartphone at almost all test sites.

In a statement on Tuesday, Telstra said that nothing had physically changed about the company’s network. “No sites have been switched off. No coverage has been removed,” a spokesman said.

“The only thing that has changed is what will be shown on a comparable map.”

Telstra said it agreed with the intent behind a common mapping standard but warned that a framework preventing operators from showing usable coverage could make it harder for customers to access the information they needed.

The company pointed to $12.4 billion spent on its mobile network to the end of financial year 2025, including $4.7 billion in regional areas, and cautioned the new standard could reduce its incentive to invest at the edges of its network.

‘No sites have been switched off. No coverage has been removed.’

Telstra spokesman

Telstra also flagged it may pursue alternative ways to communicate its coverage to customers outside the standardised maps.

ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin said the maps would be based on predictive modelling and provide plain-English descriptions of what each coverage tier means. Providers who breach the rules face enforceable undertakings, remedial directions and financial penalties.

The three network operators must also supply maps to mobile virtual network operators such as Amaysim, Boost Mobile and Aldi Mobile, ensuring the standard flows through to resellers.

The government is separately conducting a national audit of mobile coverage, with consulting firm Accenture working alongside Australia Post to test signal at up to 77 locations around Australia and collect crowdsourced data from 160,000 users.

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