In Sunday's segment on Sky News Australia (Weekend Edition with Tim Gilbert) we were hands on with Motorola’s rollable screen concept phone at Mobile World Congress in Spain. It drew big crowds along with Lenovo’s rollable laptop screen.

In Sunday's segment on Sky News Australia (Weekend Edition with Tim Gilbert) we took a TV exclusive tour of Telstra’s upgraded Blue Tick lab which is in a secret location. Telstra’s Blue Tick program is way more important than I first thought. They are able to simulate outdoor conditions to make sure phones work in Australia - most importantly - in fringe coverage areas. The way we hold a smartphone could prove the difference between making a call or having no signal at all. It’s just one of the many tests inside the lab. It could make the difference on highways or farms by kilometres. And that’s a safety issue.

In Sunday's segment on Sky News Australia (Weekend Edition with Tim Gilbert) we looked at mobile coverage for Easter road trips. A cheap city plan may leave many travellers out of range on bush roads. This is where area coverage not population coverage matters. Australia is 7.7 million km² and Telstra covers 2.6 million km² - one million more than nearest rival Optus.

Clearly Telstra offers more coverage but you don’t need a Telstra account to take advantage of that wider service area. There’s a simple ‘hack’ without leaving your current provider that works fine in city areas. And that ‘hack’ is buying a Boost pre-paid sim. Boost is the only MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) that has access to Telstra’s entire network, excluding 5G which isn’t relevant in this discussion.

If you are already with Telstra you can get devices to boost coverage but you’re looking at another thousand dollars. I tested the CEL-FI Go on the fringe of Telstra’s network last year and it works. A quick look at coverage maps will show you there are still plenty of gaps out there so if you’re going off the main roads - take into account your mobile phone coverage. Or .. get a satellite phone.

In Sunday's segment on Sky News Australia (Weekend Edition with Jaynie Seal) we looked at Elon Musk’s offer to help restore internet services to tsunami ravaged Tonga.

Musk said on Twitter: “This is a hard thing for us to do right now, as we don’t have enough satellites with laser links and there are already geo sats that serve the Tonga region. That is why I’m asking for clear confirmation.” 

Digicel workers have got some connectively going, handed out free sims and Telstra made calls free to Tonga. But Musk is right about the difficulties in getting Starlink to provide internet coverage over Tonga at this point. We discuss the reasons.