Regulators to freeze nuisance Triple Zero callers

Sep 8, 2009 3:43 PM
Filed under Telco/ISP

Around five million "non-genuine calls" a year.

The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) has begun blocking the mobile services of nuisance callers responsible for making non-genuine calls to the emergency hotline, Triple Zero.

AMTA plans to freeze the mobile services of nuisance callers - who when blocked will ironically discover that Triple Zero is the only service remaining available to them.

AMTA spokesman, Randall Markey, said that blocking every service but Triple Zero would hopefully change the way a caller behaved.

Markey said AMTA would consider also blocking Triple Zero for nuisance callers if abuse continued.

"It's like the little boy who cried wolf," he told iTnews.

The move was endorsed by communications watchdog, ACMA, together with emergency hotline operator Telstra.

ACMA said that the "handling of genuine calls is being increasingly compromised by the need to deal with non-genuine calls or calls that do not relate to time critical or life threatening emergencies.

"This is another good example of the mobile telecommunications industry working with Telstra, as the Emergency Call Person for Triple Zero, to develop industry-wide solutions to tackle the problem of non-genuine calls to Triple Zero," said Chris Chapman, chairman of the ACMA.

ACMA said Triple Zero should only be dialled in emergencies that are life-threatening or in time-critical situations requiring a rapid response from police, fire or ambulance services.

Telstra reported that it received 10.3 million calls to Triple Zero in 2008-09 and that around half the calls made did not relate to a genuine emergency situation and were not transferred to an emergency service organisation.

Regulators to freeze nuisance Triple Zero callers

5 comments in this discussion

"Lot of words, Graeme, but you seem to be saying that it's all OK if a social worker says so. Not sure that would work either, since some social workers are so embedded with their clients that ..."

By anonymous

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Comments: 5

Slatts Sep 8, 2009 9:48 PM	people who spam 000 should have their tongues removed. Let them text. If they abuse that privilege, remove their thumbs. Oxygen is wasted on these bastards.
anonymous Sep 9, 2009 4:45 PM	Yeah, Slatts - but what do you REALLY think? More seriously, the serial pests who clutter the system should get jail for repeat offences. It's likely that fines would have no effect because they wouldn't pay them and nobody would enforce them. Calling 000 because the video doesn't work or because you want a free lift to the pub/club calls for an effective response.
Slatts Sep 9, 2009 7:27 PM	people die because of these idiots anon. Bring back the stocks.
Graeme Harrison (prof at-symbol post.harvard.edu) Sep 9, 2009 9:22 PM	But of course, if we let Telstra decide who should get through, calling 000 could become like joining a Telstra IVR (interactive voice recognition) call queue... where you eventually shout expletives to get to talk to a real person. We need to remember the lesson learnt from the recent NSW Coroner's inquest into the death of the school boy lost in the NSW Blue Mountains. After three calls to 000 over an extended period, he died of thirst just 100km from the centre of our largest city. The 000 operators (NSW Ambulance Service?) consistently thought he was 'unco-operative' in that he could not give a street address, nor the name of the nearest cross-street. He consistently cited the major walking path he was on, but the operators had been trained to not escalate a call until they could get the street and cross-street details to put it into an 100%-urban-focused GIS (geographical information system). Sure, if it is a real spam call, strike them off after three strikes. But let's remember that the girl who calls and then says "No, it's OK, my boyfriend is going to take me home after all." WAS probably a valid call, and it was only the threat of police involvement that rescued her from a serious situation. Let's remember that what a social worker might assess as a valid reason to call, might be assessed by a busy call-centre worker as a waste of time. In any event it should never be the service provider setting the rules... that would be like CASA leaving Ansett to decide on its own level of plane maintenance! On public safety issues, it is always best to have the regulator removed from the profit incentive.
anonymous Sep 10, 2009 9:26 AM	Lot of words, Graeme, but you seem to be saying that it's all OK if a social worker says so. Not sure that would work either, since some social workers are so embedded with their clients that they would be likely to approve the trip to the club. It may not be appropriately academic or terribly trendy, but Slatts has come up with the stocks as the perfect solution. We could use up all the old fruit and veg that had been in the back of the fridge for so long that not even the bio-dynamic chickens would look at them. . .