Welcome to the forum @TropicRock, on the flip side I ordered a landline to a new house from the PMG in 1971, Southport Qld, in a centrally located developed estate, not near the perimeter of the built up area as then defined, and was quoted a 2 year installation wait. I moved on before the line was installed.
That was probably as quickly as they could considering funding for developing the infrastructure at the time was essentially rationed.
I remember ringing my family back in the USA (1970’s) where we booked a call at the post office paying cash, few had landlines, and attended a designated pay phone at the requisite time; an operator would ring the phone booth and connect the call. $15 for 3 minutes from memory. A good annual income at the time was about $3~4,000 for perspective.
I am in an outer suburb of Melbourne. My Telstra network SIM usually has service in half my house; my Optus network SIM sometimes has service in the other half; neither always has service where I am sitting as I type, but I do get missed call messages. To make an intelligible call I need to do one or more of walk around the house, go onto the veranda, or walk into the back garden. I am about 1 km from the tower apparently shaded by a typical area hill. I feel your pain. I am also generally cynical about the wonders of the pervasive online world being a panacea.
Even in the USA my travels span areas including the populous east with dodgy mobile service and network responses that are unusable.
I support that assertion in the general case.
