Mobile Network Hardening Program (MNHP)

The Mobile Network Hardening Program (MNHP) is an Australian Government initiative that assists the mobile network operators, infrastructure providers and infrastructure managers to improve the resilience of Australia's regional mobile network telecommunications infrastructure to:

• prevent outages in the event of a Natural Disaster;
• strengthen the resilience of telecommunications facilities to allow them to operate for longer during bushfires and other Natural Disasters; and/or
• enable the rapid restoration of services following an outage.

Round 1 of the MNHP was funded through the Government's Strengthening Telecommunications Against Natural Disasters Initiative, announced in January 2020. Round 1 is providing $23.5 million (GST inclusive) in funding to Optus, Telstra and TPG the mobile network operators across two stages to deliver approximately 1,000 projects to strengthen the resilience of regional telecommunications infrastructure.

The first stage is funding Optus, Telstra and TPG to enhance the battery backup power at 466 base stations funded under the first two rounds of the Government's Mobile Black Spot Program. These upgrades will increase backup operation at these base stations to at least 12 hours.

The second stage is funding Optus, Telstra and TPG to deliver over 530 resilience upgrades at mobile base station sites across Australia including the deployment of new portable and permanent generators to supply additional back-up power during power outages, the improvement of transmission resilience within regional mobile network clusters to reduce single points of network failure and addition and upgrades to battery systems.

For more information about the MNHP go to https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/mnhp