The Australian Communications and Media Authority has tightened mobile phone testing standards and imposed new network equipment monitoring rules on carriers as the fallout over recent emergency call failures continues.
The regulator has created a new mobile phone testing industry code that will require carriers to subject handsets to special tests designed to see how they perform when they’re required to switch networks to place emergency calls.
It will also require carriers to test how well their handsets perform when mobile base stations experience outages and power down their signals, by automatically connecting to an alternative to place emergency calls successfully.
Both of the tests relate to “camp-on” which, in simple terms, refers to the way that mobile handsets automatically switch from mobile networks that aren’t working to ones that are during emergencies.
The ACMA has also changed its existing code for emergency call services to make carriers use special remote access and network monitoring systems.
They will have to make sure that those systems have sufficiently robust backup to ensure that they keep working in the event of a core network failure.
The regulator has made clear its tolerance for any foot-dragging by carriers will be low.
“The ACMA will be taking early action to understand the status of mobile network operators’ preparation for commencement of these new rules and will not hesitate to take action if any operator is not ready to comply,” it said in a statement.
Community outrage over network outages reached new highs late last month when Optus botched a network upgrade causing Triple Zero call failures that were later able to be linked to at least three fatalities.
However, until now, mobile handset camp-on performance has been the sleeper issue in the saga.
Telecommunications industry publication, CommsDay, was the first elevate the issue into the public domain.
The industry journal – often referred to by insiders as the Australian telco industry bible – published an editorial at the start of this month highlighting the wide variability in camp-on performance across mobile handsets entering the Australian market.
The editorial questioned the regulatory and political response to the Triple Zero failures and it would seem that some in the upper echelons of the ACMA gave the column a very close read.
Still, the new camp-on testing rules arrive nearly 18 months after they were already included in recommendations released by the government after a review into Optus’s last major outage – a whole-of-network outage that took place in November 2023.
That set of 18 recommendations, released back in March 2024, focused on “addressing structural issues within the broader telecommunications ecosystem”.
That review also led to the creation of the new testing authority under the aegis of University of Technology, National Telecommunications Resilience Centre (NTRC) Sydney – the same body that has now been given the job of carrying out the new mobile handset camp-on and network equipment monitoring tests.
The telecommunications industry lobby, the Australia Telecommunications Alliance, has been contacted for comment.
