One year on from the nationwide Optus outage, the Albanese Government has made considerable progress in improving telecommunications network resilience, complaints handling and customer communications during network outages.
On November 8, 2023 a routine software upgrade caused a 14-hour network outage which impacted ten million Optus customers and prevented more than 2100 calls to Triple Zero being connected with emergency services.
Led by former Deputy Chair of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), Mr Richard Bean, the post-incident review report put forward 18 recommendations aimed at ensuring the telecommunications industry learns from this outage.
It identified opportunities for industry, regulators and government to better respond to similar events in the future.
The Albanese Government quickly accepted all 18 recommendations from the review and took immediate action to implement them.
The Minister for Communications has already directed the ACMA to develop new, enforceable industry standards to ensure better communication with customers, emergency services and government during outages and improve customer complaints systems.
The Minister has also directed the ACMA to update the Emergency Call Service Determination to improve the resilience and functioning of the Triple Zero service. These changes also require telcos to check that mobile phones connected to their network are able to access Triple Zero.
The Government has also established a Triple Zero Custodian Steering Committee, bringing together Government departments, industry, and emergency service representatives to develop a model for a Triple Zero Custodian which will have oversight and responsibility for the entire Triple Zero ecosystem.
The Government is working with Australian, State and Territory government departments and agencies to incorporate redundancy options into backup telecommunications systems in their operations to ensure the continuation of critical services in the event of future network outages.
In addition to these important regulatory measures, the Albanese Government has today launched a new community education campaign to assist families, businesses and other organisations to build their resilience against future outages.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Communications, the Hon Michelle Rowland MP:
“Last year’s Optus outage had serious impacts on public safety, access to services and caused significant disruptions to the community and the economy.
“We will continue to work closely with the regulator, industry and other stakeholders to implement the remaining recommendations of the Bean review as quickly as possible, to better prevent and manage future network outages.
“I am also pleased to today launch an important community education campaign to help Australian families and businesses prepare for any future outages to telecommunications networks.”
