by James Meese, Amber Marshall, Holly Randell-Moon, Jenny Kennedy, Rowan Wilken, The Conversation
Dubbo is a major regional centre but suffers from poor reception. Credit: Maksym Kozlenko/Wikimedia
Australians rely on their phones and the internet for education, business, socializing and in emergencies. And as Optus’ recent Triple Zero outage highlights, the consequences of a network outage can be fatal.
But the problems go beyond Triple Zero. The latest annual report from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, released earlier this week, shows a spike in complaints about network connection issues compared to last financial year. For example, there was a nearly 70% increase in complaints about “no phone or internet service.” Complaints about “poor mobile coverage” also increased more than 25%.
When it comes to connectivity problems, we often think about remote environments such as inland cattle stations or Indigenous communities in central and far north Australia. Or how language barriers, affordability and age might impact access.
However, across various research projects looking at digital inclusion, we have found a policy blind spot, where populations residing in certain suburban and regional areas have poorer connectivity outcomes than remote areas.
These people experience ongoing problems with network connection despite living in locations that look good on paper. This could be because of local infrastructure gaps or compounding social factors. We call this group “the missing middle.”
Until now, the absence of a clearly defined category has made it difficult to capture or report on their experiences systematically.
What is ‘digital inclusion?’
Digital inclusion is about ensuring all Australians, no matter who they are or where they live, have access to affordable, quality telecommunications and internet, and possess the skills necessary to benefit from these connections.
The issue is even more important as we face a changing climate, with telecommunications playing a crucial role in emergencies and during natural disasters.
Our research from 2023 on emergency preparedness with rural residents showed the importance of ongoing telecommunications connectivity—especially during emergencies.
People participate in online community forums by keeping each other informed about conditions and contacting emergency services such as Triple Zero if they need to during the disaster. Afterwards, they use the internet to apply for financial assistance online.
These combined forces have ensured telecommunications policies consistently focus on access. But access is just one component of Australia’s connectivity needs.
Through various interviews, focus groups and fieldwork across urban, regional and rural Australia from 2021–24 we have found that location alone doesn’t determine how good connectivity is.
In fact, some remote areas fare better than outer regional areas when it comes to telecommunications connectivity. This indicates geography isn’t the only factor affecting people’s level of digital inclusion.
Instead, compounding factors are determining whether or not people are digitally included.
For example, some people may not have enough money to afford appropriate connectivity to meet basic needs, needing two SIM cards to manage two unreliable networks. Infrastructure investment can also be patchy. A major regional town might have excellent coverage, but satellite towns could have a much poorer experience.
Urban networks can also taper off before reaching new builds on the edge of cities. Other people may have simply purchased a house amid inhospitable terrain, which can impact whether satellite internet services such as Starlink can be installed.
Voices from the ‘missing middle’
Experiences of 5G mobile consumers in suburban and regional Victoria we spoke with in 2024 give us some sense of this “missing middle” population.
One participant from Gippsland said, “I can be in the main street of a main regional town and not have reception.”
Another participant said it was “less than ideal” that in the area between two towns “there’s still patches where we don’t get reception.” Echoing this, another participant said they felt it was reasonable to “expect to be able to drive from Gisborne to Kyneton [a distance of 30km] and not drop out on a phone call three times.”
These issues were not the sole preserve of those living in regional areas. Someone from a new housing development on the outskirts of Melbourne told us there was barely any mobile coverage in the area and said their phone was “just not usable.”
Dubbo is another example. While some major regional cities are well-connected, this major town in the central west of New South Wales is also part of the “missing middle.”
First Nations organizations there experienced slow and unreliable network connection. This impacted their capacity to service the area. Drops in coverage resulted in double handling of work. For example, land surveys would often need to be written by hand on site, then converted to digital forms back in a place with better connectivity.
A targeted approach
Lots of work has been done in recent years to improve connectivity across Australia.
Since the National Broadband Network (NBN) was completed in 2020, more fixed line services—where a connection is installed in the home (like an NBN box)—have been made available in rural towns.
The federal government’s flagship infrastructure projects—such as the Regional Connectivity Program and Mobile Blackspot Program—have also steadily improved digital inclusion in many locations over the last decade. Starlink and the NBN’s satellite internet service SkyMuster are new entrants, providing a new connectivity option for people who live in the right locations (and can afford it).
However, current policy approaches to patching up connectivity gaps minimize the scale of the missing middle.
This is the result of several factors. First, a failure to understand the different needs of the local and visitor populations who use digital services. Second, fragmentation across telecommunications options (NBN, mobile hotspotting and Starlink). Third, a need to account for overlapping disadvantages.
We need to look beyond location or access, and develop a robust account of the “missing middle.”
Doing so requires policymakers and researchers to focus on areas with mixed and complex connectivity needs. Importantly, this kind of shift will help policymakers target the needs of these Australian telecommunication consumers.
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Some major Australian towns still have poor phone reception—it’s threatening public safety (2025, October 18)
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No doubt looking to find some breathing space after the hubbub of Watches and Wonders last week, TAG Heuer has dropped an update to its 2025 revamped collection of the brand’s iconic plastic-cased 1980s watch, the “Formula 1.”
The five new pieces are called the “pastel collection” by TAG, and all are built on the same solar-powered Formula 1 Solargraph 38 mm that launched in March last year. Two models feature a sandblasted stainless steel case, while the remaining three have cases made from TAG’s proprietary bio-polamide plastic, Polylight.
It’s these Polylight versions that, for WIRED, are the stars of the new mini collection. Coming in pastel blue, beige, and pink, and sporting case-matching rubber straps and bidirectional-rotating Polylight bezels, they reference classic F1 designs that made the line iconic in the first place.
The new Polylight beige.
Courtesy of TAG Heuer
The “pastel green” steel F1 Solargraphs.
Courtesy of TAG Heuer
The stainless steel models have a 3-link sandblasted steel bracelet and either a “pastel green” or “lavender blue” dial with matching Polylight bezels. The dials on both watches also see eight diamonds replace the circular hour markers. TAG says these models add “a touch of refinement for those seeking sophistication,” but considering these “luxury” F1s will retail at $2,800, as opposed to the already punchy $1,950 full Polylight versions, our pick is most definitely the plastic pieces.
Not only do these blue, beige, and pink versions pleasingly hark back to vintage F1 designs—though now 38 mm in size instead of the original 35 mm—but also, just like all F1 Solargraphs, they come equipped with screw-down crowns and casebacks, making for 100 meters of water resistance and ensuring these will serve well as dive and sports watches. My recommendation? Go for the pink, it looks superb on the wrist. The beige is a very close second.
Pretty in pink: The new Polylight pink F1 is limited to 1,110 pieces for the 110th anniversary of the Indy 500.
Now, there’s another class of high-end gaming laptop that focuses more on performance than being thin or portable. The Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10 is one of my favorites in this class, featuring a beautiful white chassis and glossy OLED display. Unlike some OLED displays, the Legion 7i’s screen can be cranked up to over 1,000 nits of brightness. The result is some really splendid HDR performance that brings games to life. HDR is a powerful way of improving the visuals of your games without a performance cost. The Legion 7i Gen 10 is one of the very best in this regard.
It’s still fairly thin at 0.7 inches thick too, while a lot of the ports are found on the back. It’s the definition of a “clean” gaming laptop. It’s no slouch when it comes to performance either, offering either the RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 5080 for graphics.
Cheap Gaming Laptops That Are Worth It
No gaming laptops worth buying are actually cheap. High-refresh rate displays and discrete graphics will always make them more expensive than standard laptops. But as you get closer to $1,000, there is one laptop I always come back to: the Lenovo LOQ 15. Pronounced “Lock,” this Lenovo subbrand is known for cutting the fluff and focusing on giving gamers the performance they need at an affordable price. No laptop does that better than the LOQ 15. Many laptop manufacturers sell their RTX 5060 configurations for hundreds of dollars more. In reality, if you’re shopping around $1,000, there’s no reason to not buy the LOQ 15. Just do it.
If you do want to save some extra cash, there is another option that is cheaper than the LOQ 15 with a few compromises in key areas. The Acer Nitro V 16 is that laptop, which comes with an RTX 5050. This was as affordable as $600 at one point last year—before prices on laptops have risen due to the ongoing memory shortage—but it remains the only laptop cheaper than the Lenovo LOQ 15 that’s actually worth it. It’s fairly powerful for the RTX 5050, and while the screen is pretty shoddy, it’s not a bad-looking laptop. The one big caveat is that the 135-watt power supply it comes with doesn’t deliver quite enough power to keep it charged in Performance mode. Read more about this issue in my review, as it’s important to know about if you’re planning to buy it.
There are other cheap gaming laptops out there I’ve tested, such as the MSI Cyborg A15, but either the Acer Nitro V 16 or Lenovo LOQ 15 are better, cheaper options. You will also find lots of gaming laptops under $1,000 that use older graphics cards, such as the RTX 4050 or 3050. In general, I’d recommend staying away from these. They’re only one or two generations back, but remember: Nvidia only releases new laptop graphics cards every couple of years. So, an RTX 4050 laptop may be well over two years old already, and an RTX 3050 is over five years old. Not only do you get worse graphics performance, these laptops are much more likely to need to be replaced sooner.
Experimental Stuff
One of the exciting things about the world of gaming laptops right now is the experimentation. While clamshell gaming laptops with a conventional Nvidia GPU are the most standard way to go, there’s a few different ways to take your PC games on the go that stretch the boundaries. You might consider a gaming handheld, for example, like the Steam Deck or Xbox Ally X. These handhelds have their fans, and while you can’t also do your homework on these devices, they’re great on couches, trains, and planes.
The Sans Institute, one of the world’s pre-eminent cyber security certification and training bodies, is to play a key role in the annual Nato Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) Locked Shields exercise, held in Tallinn, Estonia, through the provision of a fully functional power generation system that participating teams will attempt to defend during the game.
This year marks the 16th running of the Locked Shields live fire security defence exercise, which unites blue teams from across Nato’s 32 member states, as well as other allies and observers.
This year, however, Sans has been entrusted with the task of building a genuine, operational cyber range, as opposed to creating a simulation. It is using real industrial control systems (ICSs) and physical equipment that 16 teams of defenders will have to protect while under live cyber attack, with the decisions they make having an immediate physical impact on a national-scale power grid.
Nato and Sans said the aim of the game is to close the gap between sandboxed, classroom-based cyber security training and real-world operational readiness, which, amid the cyber dimension to the energy crisis precipitated by the war in Iran and spillover from the ongoing war in Ukraine, has never been more important.
“We are putting teams in an environment where cyber decisions directly impact physical operations,” said Felix Schallock, who leads the initiative at the Sans Institute. “If you lose visibility, if you lose control, the power generation can be affected. That’s the reality operators face every day. That’s what we’re training for.”
Nato CCDCOE director Tõnis Saar added: “Locked Shields is a technically advanced exercise that challenges participants to defend the critical infrastructure systems modern societies depend on. As much of this critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, strong public-private collaboration is essential. Industry partners such as Sans Institute play a vital role in making the exercise as realistic and impactful as possible.”
Hybrid architecture
The Sans Institute’s cyber range comprises close to 70 physical ICS devices, with programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human-machine interfaces (HMIs), operator and engineering workstations, 100 virtual machines (VMs) and interconnected systems within the wider CCDCOE environment, all supported by live network infrastructure, the whole forming a hybrid information and operational technology (IT/OT) architecture.
During the exercise, blue teamers will be set the task of defending the “energy provider” while coming under sustained attack from opposing red teams.
The goal is to effectively demonstrate how maintaining a reliable generation system isn’t some metric on a scorecard, but rather the core mission, so success will entail more than just spotting and arresting threats – it will also demand operational discipline, maintaining uninterrupted power generation, preserving comms between IT and OT networks, guaranteeing visibility and control of ICS technology, and avoiding any destabilising disruptions.
The people defending our critical infrastructure deserve training that takes the threat as seriously as they do James Lyne, Sans Institute
Actions will be visible, rippling through the systems in real time, so participants won’t just see alerts, they will see turbines being throttled, breakers being opened or closed, and generation capacity being affected. As such, failure will be immediate and visible – missteps will degrade system performance, disrupt or halt power generation, or simulate national-level consequences.
Tim Conway, Sans Institute fellow and ICS curriculum lead, explained: “We’re showing teams how to defend infrastructure that can’t simply be rebooted or patched on the fly. You have to think like an operator, not just a defender. That mindset shift is what makes this environment so powerful.”
Sans Institute CEO James Lyne expressed great pride in what the Sans team has built for Locked Shields this year. “The scenarios these critical initiatives prepare for are playing out in the world – national espionage, cyber integrated to kinetic attacks and warfare, and retaliation attacks,” he said.
“Throw in AI or machine speed attackers and the need for defenders to adapt, and you have the most disruptive period in cyber security in 20 years. We are privileged to help our allies be ready and continuously improving to secure the future. The people defending our critical infrastructure deserve training that takes the threat as seriously as they do,” he added.
Schallock said the exercise was about preparing teams for protecting the systems that matter most. “Cyber security training must reflect the environment defenders are protecting. We’re not just teaching cyber security, we’re showing how to defend a nation’s infrastructure when it counts.”
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