Gov leans into real-time network outage register

The federal government will go ahead with a plan to direct telcos to establish a public register of network outages.

Labor senator Nita Green told parliament last night that the government would direct the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to amend industry standards for customer communications to give effect to the creation of the new register.

Green said that Communications Minister Anika Wells had formally decided to make the direction after considering industry regulatory settings following the Optus triple zero outage late last month.

A letter Wells wrote to the ACMA states:  “I will be issuing a direction to amend the Telecommunications Customer Communications for Outages Industry Standard 2025 to mandate that telecommunications providers maintain a public register of their network outages.

"A public register of network outages will build on the new requirements to publicly report outages and increase transparency and accountability around outages related impacts on access to triple zero".

The intent is for information on outages to be displayed in real-time.

"From November 1, telecommunications carriers will have to provide real time reporting of outages to ACMA and emergency services," the government said.

It also emerged in parliament that Labor would be throwing its support behind a sharp increase in the maximum penalty for breaching emergency call services conventions from $10 million to $30 million.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young called for the increase in parliament, and Green later said the government would agree to the proposal.

The government’s decision to establish the register will be welcomed by consumer advocates who have been calling for the move following recent high-profile triple zero service outages, including Optus’.

Among them will be the Australian Communications Consumers Action Network which called for the establishment of the register earlier this month as a way to restore consumers’ faith in the telco providers.

"Consumers have no way of accessing this information at present. We simply have no way of knowing the 'when', the 'why', the 'who' and the 'where' of network outages, and this must change,” ACCAN chief Carol Bennett said at the time.

"It’s vital that consumer have a single source of information regarding network performance".

However, carrier lobby Australian Telecommunications Alliance (ATA), said that current regulations requiring telcos to keep customers and regulators informed about network outages were already sufficient.

“When an outage occurs, customers want to know what's happening and when they can expect to get back online - existing regulations already provide this," ATA chief Luke Coleman said.