TPG Telecom has told the parliamentary triple zero inquiry into a fatal emergency call service outage last month that it is close to finalising an agreement with its two main rivals for temporary disaster roaming.
Both TPG Telecom and Telstra revealed that they have tested the technology which could boost efforts to ensure that individuals in defined service outage areas can roam onto other networks for limited periods of time in an emergency.
“Mutual assistance arrangements are being advanced, and TPG Telecom is participating in industry discussions to finalise a memorandum of understanding with Telstra and Optus,” TPG Telecom wrote in its submission.
The two carriers also revealed some detail of their efforts to test temporary disaster roaming in their submissions to the inquiry, only made public for the first time earlier today.
TPG Telecom said it is progressingtemporary disaster roaming with testing in production environments scheduled to go ahead “shortly”.
Similarly, Telstra said technical simulations of temporary disaster roaming carried out in February last year had shown that it was feasible.
However, while the two carriers were in harmony on the potential benefits of temporary disaster roaming, Telstra told the committee that challenges for it remained.
“These include ensuring any surviving network is not overloaded from an influx of traffic causing it to fail, which would be an even worse outcome for the impacted community,” it told the committee.
Industry cooperation around the technology also remained a potential obstacle, Telstra said.
“Importantly, temporary disaster roaming will only work if there is participation by all of Australia’s MNOs [mobile network operators] and appropriate support from government and emergency service stakeholders,” Telstra said.
“We continue to engage with them on these matters.”
Satellite’s role
Telstra also flagged the possibility of a bigger role for satellite communications to replacing terrestrial mobile services in emergency call service provision.
“We are cognisant that satellite to mobile services will, in the near future, also improve the ability for customers to stay connected using their mobile devices even when the terrestrial network goes down,” it said.
In particular it, said low earth orbit (LEO) satellite to mobile (STM) services were still in a nascent phase but promised “an exciting future of ubiquitous outdoor mobile connectivity”.
“We note that it is not currently possible to send an SMS to triple zero, and we would welcome the opportunity to continue working with the Government to develop this capability,” Telstra said.
However, in the same breath, the carrier warned that satellite to mobile emergency calling would depend on carrier access to spectrum and satellite and handset technology advances.
Under the current regulations, it said, satellite to mobile could not be introduced without emergency service capability being included in the technology.
“The Telecommunications (Emergency Call Services) Determination 2025 requires that any carrier offering a public mobile telephone service must include capability to access the emergency call service,” Telstra said.
“Thus, according to legislation, calls to triple zero will be made available when satellite to mobile voice is introduced.
“Or, to put it another way, satellite to mobile voice will not be introduced without the ability to call triple zero, because doing so would be in breach of carrier obligations.”