Inquiry urges government to strip Telstra of Triple Zero responsibility in overhaul
A senate inquiry has recommended the government strip Telstra of its responsibility over the Triple Zero network after a series of catastrophic system failures in the last year.
A bipartisan report was handed down on Monday with 11 recommendations, more than a year after an Optus outage which was linked to two deaths in September last year and a national Telstra outage in July.
A senate inquiry has recommended the government strip Telstra of its responsibility over the Triple Zero network. Nine
TPG also came under scrutiny last year after the telecommunications company confirmed the death of a person in Sydney after an outage.
Among the recommendations was a call for the answering of Triple Zero calls and transferring to emergency services, currently managed by Telstra, to be taken out of the hands of telcos and nationalised.
The report also called for a text-based method of contacting emergency services and mandating domestic roaming for voice calls and messaging.
The committee’s report has been supported by the Greens, Labor and the Coalition.
Inquiry chair and Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young described current telecommunications laws as out of date.
“Successive governments have failed to ensure that regulation keeps pace with technology,” Hanson-Young said.
“Having access to a mobile phone and the internet is an essential part of everyday life for most Australians and our laws must treat it that way.
“Australian’s rightfully expect their phone to work, no matter where they are in the country.”
She called on the federal government to mandate domestic roaming, particularly for those in rural and regional access.
“Triple Zero is an essential service, it is often a matter of life or death for people,” she said.
“We can no longer allow it to be left to private companies to ensure the functioning of Triple Zero.
“Companies that put profits ahead of people should not be left to manage emergency services.
“Nationalising Triple Zero must be top of the government’s to-do list.
“Putting this emergency service back into public hands will ensure more accountability and more investment in protecting Australians.”
The report called for a review and modernisation of the telecommunications act in relation to Triple Zero.
It also recommended an independent review of the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s role, powers, resourcing, technical capability and regulatory approach in relation to Triple Zero.
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