In rural Australia? Your coverage pain may be someone else’s gain

The gap in regional coverage between Australia's big three mobile providers has never been smaller but a new report by OpenSignal suggests that difference will remain critical for those living in rural areas.

This analysis compared monthly churn rates between users with the worst and best mobile network experiences across a number of metrics including reliability, quality and consistency. 

Going by the numbers, it found that Aussies with the least consistent mobile service were 19% more likely to swap to a new provider than those with a service that was more consistent. It also found that Aussies who struggled to find a signal were 11% more likely to change to a new mobile provider than those who enjoyed the lowest amount of downtime. 

On the surface, those takeaways might sound a little obvious. A higher rate of customer churn is more-or-less exactly what you'd expect from providers who offer a lower quality-of-service. Interestingly though, OpenSignal’s datasets drew a line between these drivers of churn and the “substantial" difference in network quality found across regional parts of Australia. 

Unsurprisingly, the report found that a large portion of regional Australia still rates poorly when it comes to consistent and reliable connectivity. OpenSignal noted that Aussies in some parts of Queensland spent more than 10% of their time struggling to find a signal. For comparison, users in regional parts of Western Australia, South Australia or the Northern Territory spent more than 5% of the time without any mobile connectivity.

That disparity may represent an opportunity for providers looking to pick up new customers though. As per the report, “operators could turn these regional disparities into competitive advantages via targeted localized go-to-market strategies.”

OpenSignal’s latest data dump comes mere months after Vodafone and Optus signed a network-sharing agreement. As a result of this alliance, it's now possible to find Vodafone coverage in places where it was previously non-existent.

If you’re keen to take advantage of that expanded coverage, you can find a snapshot of the most popular mobile plans that use either the Vodafone or Optus networks in the widget below.