Queensland's worst places for mobile coverage Baker Brett Noy of Belmont in Brisbane's southeast has been battling mobile phone black spots for years. Pic: Tara Croser Source: News Limited QUEENSLAND is riddled with almost 900 mobile phone black spots, with some of the highest concentrations on Brisbane's doorstep. Toowoomba and the Sunshine Coast had the highest number of black spots identified in a recent Federal Government audit, each recording almost 50 dead areas. URGENT: Nation's 6000 black spots RECEPTION: Why Qld's is the worst The Gold Coast had the most complaints about coverage made to the telecommunications watchdog. As the number of mobile phones in Australia keeps rising and their uses continue to expand, Queenslanders continue to have to contend with black spots and "dead zones." The Federal Government's Mobile Black Spot program, in which people submitted the location of the drop-out areas, revealed more than 6000 black spots with 897 in the Sunshine State alone with zero or patchy coverage. Parts of Queensland with the most mobile phone blackspots. Black spots in the Sunshine Coast ranged from the hinterland at Maleny and further inland such as Beerwah and Nambour, while Toowoomba's were reported within the town as well as in its outlying regions. Other major regional centres around the capital city had a high number of black spots, including Lockyer Valley and Scenic Rim, while further north Banana and the Central Highlands were the worst afflicted. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman revealed call drop-outs were also a significant bugbear for Gold Coast residents at Bundall and Currumbin, with about 100 complaints from those areas received in the first three months of the year. Brisbane had just seven drop-out zones noted at Belmont, Brookfield, Burbank, Kholo, Moreton Island, Mount Crosby and Pullenvale. We check the 94 towns in the song 'I've Been Everywhere' for mobile broadband coverage. Brett Noy, owner of Uncle Bob's Bakery at Belmont, said he been with three different mobile phone network providers in 12 years just trying to find a reliable signal. He said even with a signal booster in the bakery there were times he could only get one bar of reception on his mobile. "There were times if you were out in the back laneway, you might get a bit of reception," he said. There seems to be very specific pockets in Belmont where it just drops out. There were more than 31 million mobile phone services in the country last year, well above Australia's 22 million population. A spokesman for Paul Fletcher, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications, said information from the black spot program would be used to determine the location of $100 million in new or upgraded mobile bases. Originally published as Our worst places for mobile coverage