New England North West bushfires threaten phone connectivity, Telstra warns

In the wake of devastating bushfires in the New England North West area, and worsening fire conditions expected this summer, Telstra is urging locals to take extra precautions to ensure they're ready for the worst.

Locals have reported recent outages because of fires impacting communications infrastructure across the region.

Telstra said when these are impacted, cordless phones may not work and mobile phones may not be recharged.

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Telstra's area general manager Mike Marom said there were a number of steps locals could take in preparation.

"Make sure that you've got a transistor radio to listen to bulletins from emergency services and consider having a satellite phone; they're a less expensive item than they used to be," Mr Marom said.

"A satellite phone will still provide connectivity which is critical to let family and friends know you're safe.

"Customers particularly in remote areas should consider those as a back up."

Other suggestions included having portable chargers for mobile phones and plug-in wall phones.

"Always have your mobile charged up so if you do need to get out in a hurry and you need to make a call and your landline isn't working ... then you've got some capacity to do so," Mr Marom said.

"If your phone is on SOS only you can still make calls. There's still a network from somewhere so you can make a 000 call."

He said it was also important to have a fire plan and have emergency services numbers handy.