Telstra rolls out phone box upgrades to connect communities and Australia’s most vulnerable in times of need

Telstra is upgrading 1000 of its public phones to improve disaster resilience for at-risk communities, with 103 of those already improved in WA. The new campaign, launched this month, will equip the chosen “rescue phones” with extended battery backup for free calls and WiFi. In a statement, the telco said that as community needs had shifted, so had Telstra’s iconic phone box. Since August 2021 all local and national calls to standard Australian fixed line numbers and mobiles have been free, with more than 4000 phone boxes also offering free Wi-Fi. The current plans to expand this service to even more locations comes amid the rise in natural disasters. Telstra chief customer officer Teresa Corbin said the company had made all standard national and mobile calls free four years ago, public phone usage in Australia had more than tripled. “In the past year alone, over 25 million free calls were made, including more than 300,000 to Triple Zero and other crisis support lines,” she said. One of these “vital lifelines” is a public phone in Narooma, which became a hub during the 2019-20 South Coast fires when many were without power or signal and clocked more than 1000 calls in two months. “Public phones continue to play a crucial role in helping people call for help in emergencies, stay connected through natural disasters, or simply reach out when a mobile phone isn’t available for use (such as losing battery),” Ms Corbin said. In addition to the “rescue phone”, the new advertising campaign focuses on helping those experiencing homelessness with the “hope phone.” “We’re using the iconic shape of Telstra public phones to reveal some of the ways they support keeping communities connected in vulnerable circumstances,” a spokesperson said. “In film and print, we’ve created visual metaphors. Forming the shape of our public phones from items that speak to the good they do and those they help. For example, in ‘Rescue phone’, our phone is made from emergency life vest material. In Hope phone, it’s made from the belongings of an individual experiencing homelessness.”