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Australia’s telecommunications system is facing a crisis of confidence. It is a system and a sector that this week failed our nation, the implications of which were profound for our economy and public safety.
The latest disastrous outages (two in one day) on the Telstra mobile network serve as a stark reminder that Australia still has no enforceable reliability standards holding telcos to account for network performance.
The scale of the outage is not yet confirmed. Yet given the nationwide impact and the flood of anecdotal reports from around the country, it is more than likely several million customers were hit.
Every network disruption carries a massive cost – to public safety, business operations, social connection and to the economy at large.
Wednesday’s outage caused carnage across the nation: rail freight operations ground to a halt, public transport was cancelled in multiple cities; EFTPOS machines could not process payments; trades and construction workers could not contact clients and contractors; office workers could not enter their buildings. In South Australia, traffic lights went dark; in the ACT, transport ticketing systems went haywire.
Australians rely on their phones to call Triple Zero, to run their businesses, to stay in touch with family and to access essential services. When that connection disappears without warning or explanation, the impact is immediate and real.
With a stroke of the pen and a vote in parliament, we can take a step towards resolving this reliability crisis. Telco consumer protection legislation now before parliament could be amended to grant the communications minister the power to direct the regulator – the Australian Communications and Media Authority – to set enforceable reliability standards, as she has done with setting new rules for significant and major outages.
It’s a simple amendment which, once passed, will start action. It will go a long way to figuring the path out of this reliability crisis.
There is also a question of redundancy – the back-up systems that kick in when something goes wrong. The government must consider introducing domestic mobile roaming like other countries around the world. Roaming will help fill the gap when one network fails, allowing phones to connect to another provider’s network.
Importantly, roaming will reduce the risk to the most vulnerable in our community who are unable to connect to Triple Zero when they need it most.
“Camp-on” arrangements, wherein people under extreme stress or in dire need of assistance must potentially wait on the line for more than 90 seconds to connect to another network when theirs is down is unrealistic, unnecessary and creates the risk that they will not connect when they need to most.
Soon enough, satellite-to-mobile connectivity will carry some of the burden of our failing networks, especially in regional, rural and remote areas. But this is not yet here – and in the interim, we must see roaming introduced.
According to the OECD, Australians pay much higher prices than the rest of the world for our communications services. The ACCC makes clear that every year, telcos pass along price hikes to popular plans that are multiple times CPI growth. And then we see network failures of this scale – is it any wonder that Australians have extremely low levels of trust in their telco providers?
ACCAN’s consumer sentiment tracker shows that less than 20 per cent of consumers have a high trust in their telecommunications provider to keep costs low and to act in their best interests.
All this highlights the dire and urgent need for the telco sector to be regulated and legislated as an essential service.
A recent OECD report has found Australia’s telecommunications sector suffers from weak competition, with just three mobile network operators controlling almost the entire market, and with no competition in less-served areas.
Telcos and their representatives claim to champion competition in the sector, but they reject truly competitive policies, such as domestic mobile roaming. They say they want a fair price for spectrum, but they fought tooth and nail for the government not to hold an open, transparent auction for spectrum licences and for it to be priced far lower than the regulator proposed.
This lack of competitive pressure is costing consumers through higher prices and leading to weaker service outcomes for Australian consumers compared with similar countries – all of which impacts our productivity.
This assessment is supported by the latest outage data. It shows Telstra had 5221 outages in 2025. And of the 2490 outages in the last half of the year, 386 (or 15 per cent) were “significant” local outages.
This means that in areas where Telstra is the only provider, there was a total loss of access to Triple Zero via the mobile network, with consumers able to access it only via landlines or Wi-Fi calling.
This outage came as Telstra released its latest financial results, boasting a huge half-yearly profit of $1.2 billion.
Telstra is making a tidy profit for shareholders from their market advantage gained by their unique position (and funding from the public purse) through the Universal Service Obligation and as the Emergency Call Person operating Triple Zero.
But the telco industry continues to deny or play down any issues with their services and push back against reform.
Two things must be mandated: Enforceable reliability standards, so telcos are finally accountable when their networks fail, and domestic mobile roaming, so a lack of competition stops meaning a lack of coverage.
Competition, public safety and economic prosperity all hang on this – and we’ve run out of faith in the industry to guarantee it themselves.
Carol Bennett is chief executive of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network.
Carol Bennett is the CEO of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network.From our partners
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