Outdoor mobile coverage is now law, but the satellites and the funding are still to come

Parliament has passed the Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation, which requires Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom to provide baseline outdoor voice and SMS across the country. Light Reading reports that only about a third of Australia’s landmass has terrestrial mobile coverage today.

The law is due to start on 1 December 2027. The Communications Minister can adjust or defer the requirements until 2030, depending on market and technology readiness. The minister also gains the power to set standards, benchmarks and rules for mobile services.

How carriers are expected to do it

Carriers are expected to combine their existing towers with direct-to-device satellite services, which connect a standard phone to a low Earth orbit satellite.

Telstra is furthest along. Telecoms provider VoicePlus reported in August that 2.9 million Telstra customers had sent more than 26 million satellite texts since the service launched in June 2025, with low-bandwidth apps added in July 2026. It also reported that Optus had signed with SpaceX but not launched, and that TPG had demonstrated SMS with Lynk Global without a commercial date.

What is unresolved

Luke Coleman, chief executive of the Australian Telecommunications Alliance, said the spectrum needed for these services has not been allocated and that the technology still has to be integrated into networks. He also pointed out that the services would cover areas that are not commercially viable, so sustainable funding is a challenge.

Consumer group ACCAN welcomed the safety net but called the bill a set of missed opportunities, citing the lack of roaming, enforceable reliability standards and outage compensation. NSW Farmers also raised mandatory domestic roaming as something the bill could have included.

What it means

The date to watch is less December 2027 than the decisions before it: spectrum allocation, the commercial satellite deals, and whether the minister uses the power to defer.