By Keith Henry, General Manager CU Phosco Australia and Head of Telecoms
Mobile connectivity is an essential service, not a luxury. Whether supporting remote working, connecting businesses or helping people stay in touch with family and friends, connectivity plays a fundamental role in everyday life. Yet despite significant investment in telecommunications infrastructure, coverage gaps remain a challenge across many parts of Australia, where geography continues to influence who can access reliable connectivity and who cannot.
Rural Australia is not “nothing out there”.
It is communities, businesses, farms, tourist destinations and critical infrastructure. For people living and working beyond Australia’s major cities: communities that expect access regardless of geography, mobile coverage supports access to services, navigation, public safety and vital communications during emergencies.
The challenge now is how to improve coverage efficiently, sustainably and in a way that makes commercial sense for all parties involved.
Why densification matters
Traditionally, expanding coverage meant building new towers or using existing utility poles. While still important, the focus is shifting to densification: adding infrastructure to increase coverage and capacity.
Densification is often associated with major cities, where additional infrastructure is required to support growing demand for data. However, it also plays an important role across rural Australia. In these locations, strategically positioned infrastructure can help extend network coverage, improve reliability and fill service gaps that have historically been difficult to address.
Modern telecommunications networks are no longer built solely around wide-area coverage. Operators increasingly need infrastructure positioned closer to the communities they serve, enabling them to improve both coverage and capacity. Rather than relying exclusively on large standalone structures, mobile network operators are seeking strategically located assets that can accommodate additional equipment while minimising deployment costs.
For many utility managers, the infrastructure needed to support this may already exist within their asset portfolio.
Across Australia, organisations own and maintain a wide range of infrastructure assets, including lighting poles, utility structures, transport infrastructure and public realm assets. These assets are often located precisely where telecommunications operators need access to improve network performance and extend coverage.
Traditionally, these assets served single purposes, lighting poles illuminated spaces, utility structures carried cables, and their value was limited to that function.
Now, advances in technology allow infrastructure to support multiple services from a single footprint.
For example, CU Phosco’s Connected Urban smart pole combines lighting and telecommunications infrastructure in one asset. It supports both mobile connectivity and other smart city applications, letting organisations maximise existing infrastructure and helping operators serve communities more closely.
Beyond mobile connectivity
For regional and rural communities, this can be particularly valuable. Instead of relying solely on large-scale infrastructure projects, operators can work with strategically located assets to improve coverage and network resilience.
The benefits go beyond telecommunications.
Connected infrastructure can also support CCTV, public Wi-Fi, environmental monitoring, and even EV charging. This flexibility helps asset owners ensure investments stay relevant as needs change.
This approach also supports one of the key principles of modern telecommunications infrastructure: co-location. By enabling multiple services and potentially multiple operators to share the same asset, organisations can reduce street clutter and minimise visual impact. This is particularly important in locations where planning constraints, visual considerations, or community concerns can make deploying additional structures more challenging.
For utility managers responsible for roads, parks, drainage, utilities and other public assets, this represents an opportunity to think differently about infrastructure.
Rather than viewing assets as single-purpose investments, it becomes possible to see them as platforms capable of delivering multiple services and greater long-term value.
Creating new revenue opportunities
The opportunity is not solely about improving connectivity.
Through smart poles, asset owners can create new revenue opportunities through lease agreements with mobile network operators. Instead of being viewed exclusively as a maintenance responsibility or operational cost, infrastructure can begin to generate a financial return while continuing to fulfil its original purpose.
For many organisations, the business case is strong. Lease revenue from essential telecom services can offset investment, with returns often seen in four to five years. With the possibility of more operators or technologies use the same infrastructure, asset value rises over time.
At a time when organisations are under increasing pressure to do more with constrained budgets, infrastructure that can simultaneously improve community outcomes, support connectivity and create additional revenue streams is becoming increasingly attractive.
An infrastructure challenge, not just a telecoms challenge
Utility managers may not consider themselves telecommunications specialists. Yet the assets under their responsibility could play a significant role in addressing one of Australia’s most important infrastructure challenges. By viewing existing infrastructure as more than a single-purpose asset, organisations can unlock new opportunities to support connectivity and create long-term value for the communities they serve.
Connectivity for all is not simply a telecommunications challenge. It is an infrastructure challenge.
By deploying multifunctional infrastructure such as Connected Urban, organisations can improve coverage, create new revenue opportunities, and deliver greater long-term value from a single asset investment.
