The desire to use Telehealth more to increase access to services and decrease cost and time lost in travel is rapidly increasing. We need to make mobile coverage and bandwidth more affordable for country communities and increase MBS Item numbers to support Telehealth service delivery.
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Mobile coverage may not be
Mobile coverage may not be the best telecommunications tool to expand access to telehealth services - NBN Fixed wireless and SkyMuster satellite may be a better solution - provided NBN take more care in installation and fault rectification. Telcos should be forced to provide equitable access to reliable telecommunications through close holistic (as versus individual case) monitoring by the Telecommunications Ombudsman and ACCC. There also needs to be more education to the public about which telecommunications services are available to consumers. For example, it is not widely known that anyone/anywhere in Australia can have an NBN SkyMuster service - all you need is a building to mount the satellite .