Changes to Triple Zero rules announced by Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland today are an important step to enhance public safety.

ACCAN – Australia’s peak body for communications consumers – welcomes today’s announcement by the Minister that several new requirements will apply to mobile carriers in relation to the Triple Zero service.

The range of changes included in a ministerial direction to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will amend the Emergency Call Service Determination.

 ACCAN CEO Carol Bennett said that the changes to Triple Zero rules were a sensible and considered step forward for ensuring public safety, and show that necessary lessons from the November 2023 Optus outage have been learned.

“Consumers stand to benefit from several new rules implemented by the Minister. Telcos must now ensure a new customer will be able to reach Triple Zero via their network or that of a competitor. If it turns out the customer will not be able to reach Triple Zero, the telco must inform the customer of low- or no-cost handset suppliers,” Ms Bennett said.

“Triple Zero is the lynchpin of public safety. It is of fundamental importance that consumers are informed that their device will not be able to make a life-saving call when needed.”

The new rules also place higher requirements on telcos to share real-time network information relating to outages with emergency services and the Emergency Call Person.

“During the Optus outage last November, 2500 Triple Zero calls failed to connect. This was, and remains, unacceptable, and these new rules will help to ensure that this is not repeated in future,” Ms Bennett said.

“We look forward to working with the ACMA and industry in the development of the new industry standards.” Ms Bennett concluded.

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