Bomen to get a 5G upgrade but Telstra warns to expect outages while the work is underway

5G upgrades will be carried out at Bomen at the end of January. Photo: Telstra.

5G mobile coverage is on the way for Wagga’s Bomen Business Park to the city’s north, but the upgrade may impact phone users towards the end of the month.

The upcoming work on the mobile base stations in Bomen Park and the installation of additional infrastructure will require a series of temporary outages or a reduction in mobile coverage from Tuesday 23 January to Friday 2 February.

The base station will be off the air during this period and there could be disruptions of up to four hours per day between Wednesday 30 January and Friday 2 February as testing and integration are carried out.

Telstra Regional General Manager Chris Taylor explained that crews need to work during daylight for safety reasons.

“We’ll only be switching off the site when we need to and have it back on as quickly as possible,” he said.

“Where possible we will just be switching off the parts of the tower we are working on, leaving the rest operational.

“There’s never a good time to undertake this sort of work but once it is completed, it will mean better mobile services for local residents.”

Landlines, NBN internet services and mobile coverage from other providers will not be impacted and it is hoped that the upgrade will be completed by 2 February.

“Telstra does have other mobile base stations which may help provide some coverage, but most of our mobile coverage for this area does come from this base station so there will be an impact,” said Mr Taylor.

“As a company, we heavily invest in improving regional connectivity. Over the past seven years to the end of FY23, Telstra invested $11 billion in our mobile network nationally, with $4 billion of this invested in our regional mobile network.”

There are now more than 4900 Telstra 5G sites on-air within selected areas of more than 400 cities and towns across Australia.

Much of the Riverina already enjoys 5G coverage, but it is so far limited to the larger population centres with the extensive 4G network covering the majority of the region.

“We’re continuing to expand our 5G network across location and nationally we’re adding new sites to the network every week. Upgrades such as these continue to demonstrate Telstra’s ongoing commitment to regional Australia,” Mr Taylor said.

Telstra estimates that 85 per cent of Australians now have the ability to access the 5G network however doing so requires a 5G capable device so an upgrade may be needed to connect.