Residents across Leneva and the top end of the Indigo Valley had learnt to live with the extra danger of living in a bushfire-prone, farming area without any mobile phone reception.
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That all changed before Christmas when their new mobile tower on top of Mount Baranduda was switched on.
They celebrated on Friday evening with the official launch.
The fires of late 2015 were the main driver behind the tower being funded as part of the federal government’s mobile blackspot program.
Leneva Fire Brigade secretary Ken Brewer said firefighters and residents had to rely on relaying messages through radios, pagers and landline phones.
“We had no service at all and now we’ve got full service,” he said.
“Especially working in the hills away from the house, you had no service at all and it was a bit of risk when you were working on your own.
“You’ve got a sense of security now because you’ve got service and if you get into strife you can ring someone.”
The new tower also fixes one of the region’s most frustrating blackspots, providing coverage along Beechworth-Wodonga Road – almost all the way to Beechworth.
Indi MP Cathy McGowan, who lives in the Indigo Valley, said of the eight towers to open in the electorate so far, this one was closest to her heart.
She said her office had numerous calls from people at Wooragee late last year when they suddenly had mobile service as Telstra was testing the tower, but wanted to keep it quiet.
“But it was all too late. It was on Facebook and it had gone wild, so the community had worked it out – that’s how important it is to people,” Ms McGowan said.
“We’ve got the top end (of Indigo Valley) covered, we’ve still got work to do in the south getting that coverage as well.”
She thanked the Victorian government and Indigo and Wodonga councils for putting in money for the tower, but said the federal government still needed to fix more blackspots.
Telstra’s Gary Austin said the tower provides both 3G and 4G technology, giving people voice and high-speed internet for the first time.
“It’s a great thing for the community,” he said.
