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Australia’s telcos face a raft of new rules in the wake of the Optus outage, around how they communicate with customers during an incident and sharing post-incident reporting with the government.

The changes come after as part of the federal government response to the November 2023 Optus outage, which had wide-ranging impacts on consumers, businesses and emergency services.

At a whole-of-industry level, the sector will be subjected to “new rules mandating how, what and when telecommunications carriers communicate with their customers during and after a major outage”, communications minister Michelle Rowland said in a statement.

Industry will also now be required to “provide work plans to the regulator following a major outage, to explain how an impacted telco will mitigate the risk of a similar outage in future”.

There will also be some changes to emergency calling management.

The November Optus outage caused some 2697 Triple Zero calls from Optus customers to fail. 

A separate Telstra outage in March this year caused some Triple Zero call transfers to fail as well. 

There have also been recent concerns that 3G network shutdowns will leave some customers unable to make Triple Zero calls.

“Over the next 12-18 months, the government will establish the Triple Zero Custodian framework, initially led by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO), to improve industry accountability and end-to-end oversight of Triple Zero,” the government said today.

The government will also “create a new comprehensive testing regime across telecommunications networks and telecommunications devices for calls to Triple Zero; and “review and update of legislation and regulation relating to the delivery of Triple Zero.”

TIO Cynthia Gebert said her organisation “will work with all parties to deliver a robust Triple Zero function, enhanced telco standards and rules in line with community expectations, improved communication during a crisis, and a fairer system for consumers to seek compensation during times of mass disruption.” 

Rowland said the review “is the most comprehensive examination of the Triple Zero ecosystem in over a decade.”

“It means we have a workable blueprint to implement changes that will help improve the resilience of telecommunications in this country,” she said.

An unprecedented Optus network outage affected about 10 million people’s phone and internet services in November last year.

It happened during a network update which did not go to plan, and prevented some users from calling triple-0.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland joins Raf Epstein to share the findings of a review into what went wrong, and what the government will do to prevent future catastrophes.

Australia’s triple-0 line will be better protected against future technical issues, as Optus apologises again after an outage left thousands of Australians unable to contact the crucial service.

Nearly one in three Australians were left without phone and internet services when the telco company experienced a nationwide outage in November.

During the 14-hour event, thousands of emergency calls made to the emergency line triple-0 were also unable to go through, putting lives at risk.

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Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has announced the federal government has received a review into the crippling outage and will begin implementing changes over the next 12 to 18 months to improve accountability of telecommunication giants and boost oversight of the emergency network.

“This is the single biggest review of the triple-0 service in over a decade,” she told Sky News on Tuesday.

“Whilst in unfortunate circumstances with so many tens of millions of customers were impacted, businesses and consumers alike, it has given important guidance for lessons for the future and things that need to be done to really lift the performance of triple-0.”

In accordance with the recommendations, the government will introduce rules mandating how, what and when telcos communicate with customers during and after a major outage.

A testing regime will also be set up to ensure the emergency hotline remains accessible.

The review also recommended carriers conduct testing every six months to ensure sustained access to the emergency network.

The industry will need to give the regulator a work plan after a major outage that explains how an impacted company will work to prevent one in the future.

Triple-0 legislation and regulation will also be reviewed.

“It is certainly a feat of engineering that, irrespective of where you are in Australia, people are able to get access to police ambulance or fire when they dial triple-0,” Rowland said.

“But at the same time, this ecosystem takes a lot of factors to work in it and part of (the review’s) criticism was everyone was doing their part, but they stayed in their lanes and didn’t think about how this worked across the system.”

The main cause of the triple-0 issues during the outage was due to a lack of “wilting” on Optus’s 3G network, which is supposed to power down dysfunctional towers so calls could be carried by another tower.

According to Optus, the issue has now been addressed but Rowland maintains it highlighted vulnerabilities in the system that the government will address by implementing all 18 recommendations in the review.

Optus’s interim CEO Michael Venter confirmed he has received the review and assured customers changes had already been made.

“We would like to apologise again to all our customers who were affected by the outage,” he said in a statement.

“(We) acknowledge the importance of having an emergency services system that prioritises public safety.”

Telcos will be forced to share real-time network information during outages and set up a body to take charge of Australia’s triple-0 system, in the wake of last year’s Optus outage.

These are just two recommendations in a series of changes put forward in the Bean Review final report.