National Audit of Mobile Coverage

The National Audit of Mobile Coverage aims to better identify mobile coverage black spots across Australia to help target future investment, and to provide an independent resource that better reflects on ground experiences of mobile coverage provided commercially by mobile providers.

The Audit is a component of the Government's Better Connectivity Plan for Regional and Rural Australia.

The Audit will run until 30 June 2027. Accenture Australia has been contracted to undertake the Audit on behalf of the Government.

The Audit commences with a pilot, covering 3 roads and 3 locations in each state and territory. The pilot runs for 3 months.

Following the pilot Audit, the main Audit will commence, drive testing around 180,000 km of regional and rural roads every year for 3 years. Accenture will also place devices in up to 77 locations—across all states and territories to conduct testing over an extended period over the 3 years. This will assist in identifying seasonal variations in mobile coverage.

The Audit will measure coverage and performance across Optus, Telstra and TPG, and also cover 3G (while it is available), 4G and 5G services.

Audit data from drive and static testing will be complemented by crowd-sourced data collected by Accenture. Crowd-sourced data can provide information on mobile coverage and network performance. Importantly, it reflects coverage where people actually use their mobiles.

During this initial phase of the Audit, crowd sourced data and data collected from the pilot Audit are available to the public via the Mobile Audit Visualisation Tool. The data and coverage maps presented here are compiled through community input and field testing, capturing real-world user experiences at given moments in time. Further information about the nature and methodology for collecting the data is available and in the Visualisation Tool. This information will be updated as the Audit progresses.

As pilot and main audit data becomes available, the coverage maps will be updated with data collected through drive-testing and static locations. Crowd-sourced data is collected via the Accenture Crowdsourcing platform and draws upon on 150,000 active users in Australia at any one time contributing to 3.5 billion samples annually.

Map of Audit Roads and Locations

The map displays roads and locations proposed to be audited, and may be subject to change.

Queries related to the National Audit of Mobile Coverage can be sent to mobileaudit@infrastructure.gov.au.

Further information