Bushfire-affected Mallacoota residents suffer heightened anxiety during Telstra outages

Residents of Mallacoota in eastern Victoria, who will soon mark the first anniversary of devastating bushfires in the town, say regular Telstra mobile phone outages are triggering heightened stress and anxiety in the community.

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Connections to the 3G and 4G networks were disrupted on November 15, and people who rely on 3G connections lost mobile phone coverage again on Sunday.

Resident Liza Newby said the outages were causing extreme distress for people suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from last summer’s bushfires.

The disruptions were particularly distressing, she said, on days of extreme weather.

“The wind sounded like the fires coming again.

“It was causing flashbacks and panic attacks all over town, and for…