Kimberley - mobile phone coverage

Broome, Derby, Kununurra, Cape Leveque, Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek Wyndham, and Argyle mine would just about cover it for Next G.


Look here.

Telstra mobile caoverage maps

The lookout at Home Valley gets coverage form Kununurra. This is the last point on the GRR going south until Derby.
Regards Philip A

Just been through there and would agree.

Unless you have an external aerial expect to run out of reception fairly quickly

near some of the places mentioned.

Most roadhouses no reception

Eighty mile beach have a phone booth and their own cell repeater so can get it there.
Only place really between Broome and Pt Hedland.

Dont worry be happy your worries cant catch up with no phone.

LOL

With Next G will get reception in these places mentioned above.
You might be better off with Vodafone or 3, pretty good chance you won't get reception with these carriers.
Another option is to turn the phone off ;-)

Dan

Forget Vodaphone or Virgin no signal bejond 10k out of Broome

Do you need mobile phone coverage or just want it ? Perhaps you would be better off with HF radio if it is of great importance for you to maintain communications. Plenty of travellers that way this time of the year. Good luck with your travels.

With a decent ZCG Scaler aerial you will get coverage outside of the coverage areas. ZCG are hand made and individually tuned in south eastern Victoria in Legongatha and outperform the mass produced aerials. ZCG same price better quality and performance

We got nothing between Derby and Kununurra last year - although we didn't try the lookout near the Pentecost where some people got a NextG signal (oly heard about that afterwards). When we got to Kununurra, people were queuing at the public phone box to ring home after coming off the Gibb, as those with Optus got absolutely no signal. I had Telstra GSM and NextG and both worked in Kununurra. We got a satellite phone before venturing any further.

If you have a real need, like a medical condition that may create an emergency, get a satellite phone. You can take it with you on the walks too.

We didn't use it last year, but needed it this year after a breakage left us stranded.

Motherhen

The signal up here is shocking and Next G doesnt really exist. I could get better reception of the old GSM network.

Broome has Vodafone and Telstra
Kununurra has Vodafone and Tesltra
Argyle Diamond Mine has Vodafone and Telstra
The rest are all just Telstra

The signal from Home Vallley and Bindoola jump up is actually transmitted from Wyndham not Kununurra. Would be doing very well if you could get signal from 100kms away. Years ago when mustering out past Home Valley near Molliacka springs we could get signal if standing on the roof of the car. These days cant get nothing.

On a recent trip to theKimberley as others have stated here you can certainly get the most favorable coverage with Telstra. Telstra also market phones that better for remote coverage. You may wish to check that out.

Putting aside the semantics, these services only operate 20 or so kms from the town. These towns can be many hundreds of kms apart and if you wish to connect to the outside these town you will need a HF radio (or Sat phone).

Take a look at this site

http://www.vks737.on.net/pdfs/DOC%2006.pdf

This may help. Enjoy the Kimberly, we certainly did.

If you buy a Satfone look on Ebay for a s/hand one FROM AN AUSSIE SELLER.

If you have a Telstra sim card that is on a plan and internationally roamed you can put it in the satfone and use that.

Expect to pay in excess of $3 a minute for BOTH INWARD AND OUTWARD CALLS.
Texts are about 75c

If you are on a Telstra SATELLITE plan you only pay outwward but has ongoing monthly costs whether you use it or not.

The sim is cheapest if its only used for emergencies.

Keep my maill addy mine will probaly be for sale later in the year when we get back east.

Have only had one occasion to use it in 28,000k including the Kimberley.

That was south of 80 mile beach ( not in the Kimberley apparently) LOL

Wanted to book ahead at Pt Hedland so used it then.

It all depends on where and when you are going and how likely you are to get stuck or similar.

This time of the year is pretty busy up there so people around most places.


Cheers

Sorry a little late in on this discussion, however if a sat phone is needed just for this trip and to avoid the cost of purchasing there are numerous places on the east coast and in the west where you can hire them. We did this in 2005 for the Canning and it was posted to us at Halls Creek and we posted it back to Kalgoolie from Wiluna. Cost us about $300 for 3 weeks.

Michael John, Vic.

We have just return from the kimberley region and found that the blue tick telstra country phone work much better than our standard next g/gsm models. We also had coverage at Kalumburu in some places/time.