Federal Member for Gippsland Darren Chester has welcomed the announcement of $2 million for the Alternative Voice Services Trials (AVST) Program to trial alternative ways to deliver voices services in rural and remote areas of Australia, including Gippsland.
Mr Chester said NBN Co, Concerotel and Zetifi were announced as the first three grant recipients to deliver trials under the program.
Zetifi will deliver up to 50 trial voice services to provide improved Wi-Fi calling for farms and rural and remote communities in northern Victoria and remote areas of New South Wales that currently experience poor mobile coverage.
Mr Chester is encouraging Gippslanders in regional and remote areas to consider taking part in the trials.
“The trials are a great opportunity to find better ways of delivering voice services now and into the future,” Mr Chester said.
“It’s important that the new technology is tested across a number of different areas to see what will and won’t work for remote communities.
“Some trials will include antennas or battery back up at homes, which is intended to provide a more robust service with better in-home call quality.”
Gippslanders can be assured that the existing fixed voice services, such as copper of high capacity radio concentrator service, will remain connected until there are proven alternatives.
More information, including how consumers can register their interest to participate in the trials is available at www.communications.gov.au/what-we-do/phone/phone-services/universal-service-guarantee-telecommunications/alternative-voice-services-trials-program
