Mobile Network Hardening Program Perth Hills Round - Draft Grant Opportunity Guidelines

ACCAN recently submitted to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts’ (the Department) consultation on the Mobile Network Hardening Program Perth Hills Round - Draft Grant Opportunity Guidelines. ACCAN supports the Department’s Mobile Network Harding Program for the Perth Hills region, which allocates $1.2 million (GST exclusive) to enhance telecommunications resilience.  

This submission recommends the Department: 

1. Strengthen battery backup requirements by providing additional weighting for applicants demonstrating more than 20 hours of backup power capacity.  

2. Expand prioritisation criteria to include population density, proximity to emergency services, historical outage frequency, and presence of vulnerable populations.  

3. Improve transparency by requiring third party in-kind co-contributions to be reflected in a reduction of funding sought, rather than leaving this optional.  

4. Establish clear delivery milestones and accountability measures to ensure the timely implementation of resilience upgrades.  

5. Develop an ongoing monitoring and evaluation framework to assess the effectiveness of upgrades against baseline outage data.  

6. Support coordination between telecommunications resilience upgrades and other essential services, including electricity providers and emergency services.  

7. Publish the Mobile Network Harding Program’s outcomes, including successful locations, types of upgrades and community benefits, to improve transparency and accountability.  

8. Ensure meaningful community engagement by regularly updating the local community on resilience upgrades and educating consumers about improved resilience.  

9. Prioritise the needs of vulnerable populations, including elderly residents, people with disabilities, and those reliant on telecommunications for medical equipment or emergency communication.