Communications Minister Anika Wells has directed telecommunications companies to establish public registers tracking network outages, bowing to pressure following Optus’ fatal September outage that failed to connect over 600 Triple Zero calls and has been linked to three deaths.

Wells has formally directed the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to amend the Telecommunications (Customer Communications for Outages) Industry Standard 2024, making it mandatory for companies to record network outages and make information publicly available.

“A public register of network outages will increase transparency and accountability around outages and related impacts on access to Triple Zero,” Wells said in a letter to ACMA.

The minister emphasised Australians need confidence that Triple Zero services will be available when needed.

Telco companies are currently required to notify affected customers in real time of:

  • “Significant” outages affecting 250 or more services in remote areas or 1,000 or more services in regional areas
  • “Major” outages affecting 100,000 or more services

However, neither companies nor the regulator maintain public databases, limiting transparency about outage frequency and severity.

Greens and Liberal senators joined forces Tuesday to establish a Senate inquiry investigating how Optus and its Singaporean parent Singtel handled the September network failure.

The probe will also scrutinise broader reliability of the emergency services network.

West Australian Senator Dean Smith urged Labor colleagues, particularly from Western Australia and South Australia, badly impacted by the outage, to support the inquiry.

“The public interest is best served by a unanimous decision of the Senate to support the Optus investigation,” he said.

Opposition communications spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh and consumer advocate Carol Bennett have repeatedly called for public databases on emergency call failures.

The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) released a policy paper in mid-October arguing for a centralised national register.

ACCAN proposed a single public register aggregating information from all telco carriers in a consistent format, addressing what it described as the absence of a “unified system” that has reduced transparency.

Coalition senators criticised the government for previously opposing amendments to legislation establishing a Triple Zero custodian that would have created a public outage register.

“The minister has spoken of the need to rebuild trust and confidence in the Triple Zero network so Australians can have faith that the service will work, but that is nothing more than platitudes,” said Liberal Senator James McGrath during Monday’s Senate debate.

Senators on Monday also pressured the government to include provisions for higher penalties of up to $30 million for failing to connect customers to Triple Zero.

“From now on telecommunications companies that fail to connect their customers to Triple Zero will now have to cop much larger fines,” said Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

“This should send a message to all the telcos that they are on notice.”

Wells has not specified when the public registers must be operational.

ACMA will need to amend the industry standard before telco companies are legally required to establish and maintain the registers.