The impetus for exploring a new telephone services was driven at three different levels: • Government agencies and regulatory bodies suggested alternatives technology and
prepaid services need to be trialed (DCITA 2004: 174, ACA 2004: 7)
• Community members on the ground questioned current delivery of telecommunication services
• Whilst, service providers continue to have difficulties meeting regulatory obligations. The Community Phone is an example of new technology and a new service that may be more appropriate for many remote communities.
Identifying a New Technology
Simplistically, the Community Phone can be broken down into three main parts the outside stainless steel protective casing, the internal T1000s telephone and TSD1 handset, with additional extras for phone line connection and regulating handset volume.
The Community Phone is designed around a number of principles, including: 1. The Community Phone can be accessible to everyone in the community: The
Community Phone can be located in a central position so that anyone can access it 24 hours a day. Unlike some public telephones, this phone is designed to be installed either on the side of a community building/residential house or in a Telstra public phone cabinet.
2. The Community Phone uses a prepaid card service: Previous reports have highlighted that a prepaid card service may be more appropriate in some communities than other services, particularly standard telephone services where people can get into debt management problems. The prepaid service should be competitive with other phone rates.
3. The Community Phone is robust: The Community Phone includes a stainless casing which protects the internal phone. The weather resistant steel casing is designed to cope with the extreme conditions, such as dust and heavy rain. The protective case allows water and grit to fall through the back, without damaging the T1000S telephone. The protective unit is also designed so that high strength cleansing material can be used to remove any graffiti or other blockages, i.e. chewing gum.
4. The Community Phone uses standard components: The Community Phone uses standard Telstra components: a T1000S telephone and TCP1 handset. Dysfunctional or broken parts can be changed over relatively easily by someone at the community. The components are easy to replace which reduces the need for service calls.
5. The Community phone can be maintained by a community member (without ACMA certification): The standard parts help this phone to be maintained by community residents. This maintenance is limited to aspects of the phone itself and does not include phone line service. The parts that can be maintained are the protective casing, the handset and the internal phone.
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This resulted in a number of design changes to the technology. During monitoring of units installed in the NT, we have found that less 1.5% of units have had faults with the protective casing and that these have been repaired within a reasonable timeframe. However, during our monitoring we have also found that 6% of handsets were broken during the initial visit, which is often attributed to frustration with lack of
understanding of the technology. It may be argue that this could be improved through a stainless steel handset, whereas a more appropriate solution may be to coordinate organisations so that awareness of technology and prepaid service is delivered as soon the telephone is operational.
The authors were involved in raising awareness of the prepaid cards, which allowed us to explore the frustrations that people had with the new prepaid service. The Country Calling Card (CCC) requires you to enter 12 digit pin into the telephone, which can often be difficult for people, particularly those who have limited eyesight. And, in many areas there is still preference for convenience of coin operated telephones, except when it is out of order or being used. Additionally, the CCC has been inadequately marketed throughout the NT and WA, with residents of remote communities not able to purchase the cards in their community. Moreover, the Call Centre responsible for providing help about the cards was not aware of the cards during the first months of the trial. The limited marketing and poor helpline services raises questions about the service provider’s support for the project now and into the future.
The above paragraph hints at the difficulties of a project working across a range of stakeholders and organisations. The project was run over a year, however over 50 percent of Community Phones were installed during the last three months of this period due to poor project management. These delays affected other organisations in fulfilling their project responsibilities including awareness raising, training, evaluating and provisioning of community information. Indeed, it is essential that Government, service providers, remote communities and Indigenous organisations work together within projects but it needs to be supported with a collaborative framework that ensures that all organisations are able to deliver their project requirements in suitable timeframes.
More broadly, the Community Phones Project has had limited outreach to those communities without existing telecommunications infrastructure. In the NT, only four applications were supported where there was no existing infrastructure. The Community Phone is currently not covered by the USO, which means that there are no real safe guards for the service for remote communities. Operating outside the USO, Community Phones may require greater investment on community capacity issues and should only be delivered where Community Phones form part of broader community wide planning around telecommunications role in the social and economic development of community. We argue that the regulatory measures should be resolved as soon as possible and certainly before further Community Phones investment.
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Security and safety are important issues for many communities. Our work particularly noted that town camps residents found telephone services particularly in these cases, which may correlate with their ability to access emergency and Night Patrol services. At Ipolera community, a small outstation with one family group, the residents suggested that the telephone improved access to services and family:
My family and I use this phone to call services in town like Centrelink and Congress Health. We only have one other phone in the community at the office, so now we use this phone and don’t hold up important calls on office phone. Family also ring us when they are in town and because it is close to houses, we hear it most of the time.
Other community members within the trial communities also reported improve access to health services (particularly for elder community members), financial/banking services and government agencies.
From the international perspective, communication technologies are vital for economic development and in a small number of cases, there is direct evidence that Community Phone has provided some support for livelihood and enterprise opportunities.
For example, during a project evaluation visit to an outstation on the Dampier Peninsula where a successful mudcrab tour operates, a resident received a call from the international client requesting information about the tour. It must be noted that link between
commercial activity is not always identifiable but is more readily evident in remote outstations, particularly those where a family enterprise operates and the Community Phone is the sole telephone service.
In the above statements the enthusiasm for the Community Phone that is difficult to distinguish from phone services in general. Where survey respondents did distinguish the Community Phone from other services, the most appealing factors where the robustness, communal access and the reliability of the service. One man from Areyonga said:
We glad we got this phone and you helped us. The phone doesn’t get damaged like the old one cause there are no coins in it. We know how to fix it, but I doubt it will be broken.
In all of the examples above, telephone services provide a key element in long term community sustainability, and provide evidence that is essential that technology is reliable, services are appropriate and communities are involved in telecommunications project planning.
Improving the Community Phone Project
Aside from the service user’s perspectives, the pilot project itself required some evaluation. Within, this paper it is difficult to cover all the detail, Horsley (2006) and Wright (2005) provide greater coverage of the issues below. However, below we address specific areas that have or may increase project sustainability.
The technology has proven to be fairly robust in the remote context and with support of community maintenance is working effectively. However, there are some units which have problems with switch hook and effect the ringing on incoming calls to Community Phone.
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References
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2000) Community Housing and Infrastructure NeedsSurvey, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2004), National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social survey 2002, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra.
Australian Communication Authority (2004) Payphone Policy Review 2004, Australian Communication Authority, Melbourne.
Campbell, Daisy (2003) Telephones in Remote Communities – Part 2, Segment 6, 2003, personal communication, Our Place Radio, CAT Productions, Alice Springs.
Department of Communication Information Technology and the Arts (2002),
Telecommunications Action Plan for Remote Indigenous Communities: Report on the strategic study for improving telecommunications in remote Indigenous communities, May 2002, Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Canberra. Horsley, Allan (2006) The Community Phones Program: Stage 1 Evaluation, independent
report of DCITA, March 2006, Institute of Engineers Australia.
Regional Telecommunications Inquiry (2002) Connecting regional Australia—the report of the Regional Telecommunications Inquiry, Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Canberra.
Telstra (2004) Telstra’s Universal Service Obligation Standard Marketing Plan, ACA approved 21 Jan 2001, Telstra.
Telstra (2001) Telstra’s Universal Service Obligation Policy Statement, ACA approved 30 October 2001, Telstra.
Wright, Alyson (2005) COMMUNITY ACCESS TELEPHONE EVALUATION: The trial of a community phone for remote areas, CAT Report 01/2005, Alice Springs.
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Conclusion
The Community Phone Project has provided an impetus for refocusing on the issues of providing basic lifeline services to Indigenous communities. The Community Phone has been taken on by many communities across Central and Northern Australia. Indigenous people in these communities are engaging in this new technology for their own ends, including to contact family and friends, emergency, health care facilities and to support livelihood options. Arguably, many of these may not necessarily exchangeable in a policy or project objective, but they are fundamentals in community development, viability, livelihood aspirations and indeed, community sustainability. As one woman from Mulga Bore states:
This is my country and I like living here. That phone is so important, otherwise I couldn’t talk to my family down south or my daughter in Tennant Creek.
The trial of the telephone which uses a prepaid service and can be maintained by
community members, has improved reliability, functioning and accessibility to telephone services in most communities in the project. However despite this initial success, the Community Phone is no magic bullet to telephone services in remote areas. Many issues highlighted during the first phase of installations (Horsley 2006; Wright 2005) still need to be addressed to improve Community Phone delivery in the future.
More generally, the Community Phone is one option for telephone services. Given, the enthusiasm that has been generated from other remote communities interested in trialing the Community Phone it is critical that information become available which details options for telephone services in remote areas and delivers a process where Community Phones are part of a more broader planning process around telecommunication services in Indigenous communities.
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Sustainability of Indigenous Communities in Australia 6 Services to Settlements