Australian telcos will be more accountable to consumers and government under new network outage transparency rules to come into effect later this year.
Under the new rules, from June 30 the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will require telcos to publish historical information about major and significant local unplanned services outages on their networks resolved on or after March 31, 2026.
Telecommunications providers are already required to publish “live” information about unplanned outages on their networks and take steps to make customers aware of them under rules introduced last year.
ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin said that the additional rules would make carriers more accountable to a wider range of stakeholders.
“These new requirements are designed to provide greater transparency about telecommunications outages for a wide range of stakeholders, including the Triple Zero Custodian, emergency service organisations and consumer advocacy groups,” Ms O’Loughlin said.
“This information also improves the information available to consumers about the relative performance of their telcos.
“This will complement the complaints performance data which the ACMA publishes quarterly.”
iTnews contacted Telstra, TPG Telecom and Optus seeking comment on whether their network monitoring and observation systems were ready for the new rules.
TPG’s spokesperson said the carrier already had sufficient systems in place to meet the new standard.
“We already operate under strict outage detection and notification requirements and have processes in place to comply with the new rules,” TPG Telecom’s spokesperson said.
“We do not need to introduce new tools to meet these obligations however we continuously review our systems and processes, including automating some of this functionality, to ensure compliance and transparent communication.”
Optus said that it had already taken steps to increase transparency for customers, having introduced a register of unplanned mobile service outages late last year.
However, the carrier also said it would be reviewing the rules in preparation for their arrival in June.
“We’re currently reviewing ACMA’s updated register requirements and we will ensure we can deliver and implement the changes ahead of June 30,” an Optus spokesperson said.
TPG Telecom’s spokesperson also said that the carrier welcomed clarity around “the distinction between the active outage register which provides customers with information during an outage, and the historic register which captures details that may be relevant once an outage has been resolved”.
Telstra did not respond by the time of publication.
The new rules will be given effect by a change to industry standards for communicating outages to customers under the Telecommunications Act.
The change to the standard requires carriers to share 20 key types of information, including the need for a short description of the outage, a unique identifier and its type.
Carriers will also be required to provide detailed information about duration and location of outages, broken down by dates and times, and by state, town, post code and suburb.
They will also have to specify the which connections impacted, such as mobile voice, mobile data, fixed broadband, fixed phone, satellite broadband, satellite voice, fixed wireless or NBN voice only.
When NBN broadband services are impacted telco providers will be required to detail the type of connections impacted, such as FTTB, FTTC, FTTN, FTTP or HFC.
