Australia's Parliament House received a major cellular signal boost over the past six months courtesy of a “large-scale” mobile antenna system project.
President of the Senate, Senator Scott Ryan, told a hearing yesterday that groundwork is now being laid to enable 5G services at the site.
Ryan said he hoped “all building occupants have noticed a significant improvement in mobile phone coverage and reception in Parliament House” over the past few months.
“Mobile phone users will now find enhanced coverage across the building, including areas which have never previously had reception, such as the car parks,” he said.
The building’s mobile phone reception has historically been patchy.
In response, the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) deployed a new base station and antenna system, supported by all three major commercial carriers.
Infrastructure build work was completed in October last year.
“Telstra was responsible for the installation of new cabling [and] antennas within Parliament House for this upgrade, and this was completed in September,” Ryan said.
“This was a large-scale project.
“The new mobile antenna system is one of the largest ever installed in a business in Australia, comprising 1096 new antennas, 60 kilometres of coax cabling, nine kilometres of fibre-optic cabling and the construction of the new base transceiver station.”
Telstra and Optus started offering upgraded services at the site in December, and Vodafone “came online in February 2021”.
“Minor rectifications and tuning works are currently underway and are expected to continue to have little impact on the service experienced by mobile phone users in the building,” Ryan said.
He added that the new cellular infrastructure “has been designed to enable 5G technology as it becomes available.”
“Telstra has confirmed the first steps to enabling 5G system performance have commenced,” he added.
