Telcos face renewed pressure after fire outages leave people stranded and desperate
Victorians in bushfire-ravaged parts of the state were unable to reach their families and firefighters lost contact in last week’s catastrophic conditions, prompting renewed calls to secure telecommunications during natural disasters.
Stephen Meyer, local farmers’ group officer at Natimuk district CFA stations in Victoria’s west, said he lost phone service while fighting fires in the area on Friday. That limited firefighters’ ability to respond to the fire in a coordinated manner, Meyer said.
“One of our commanders jumped in a vehicle and started finding the fire trucks at the fire scene and giving them information. They did a great job… because we couldn’t communicate properly.”
Lachlan Hick, who lost one of his two properties in the Natimuk fire, caught up with his two elderly neighbors when the wind suddenly changed at around 1pm on Friday and an evacuation order was issued. However, since they were away from the city, there was no reception and their neighbors could not contact their loved ones.
“That was the hard part,” Hicks said.
As they approached Horsham it took about 20 minutes for reception to return.
Telstra has confirmed that a power outage has temporarily disrupted services at its Mount Arapiles mobile site, which covers Natimuk.
“The backup power did not perform as expected,” Western Victoria regional manager Adrienne Holobowski said.
Telstra said the generator had nine days’ worth of fuel but suffered a mechanical failure in extreme weather conditions. The malfunction is being investigated.
“Our teams restarted services the next day when access to the site was secure,” Holobowski said.
He noted that Telstra had brought more than 100 mobile sites back online last week.
Federal member for Indi Helen Haines has renewed her call for telecommunications to be secured during natural disasters.
Numerous studies have advocated temporary emergency roaming, which allows cross-network usage if a network goes down. This is already available for Triple Zero calls, but it failed during last year’s Optus outages.
Haines, an independent whose constituents were devastated by the Longwood fire, also called for cell phone base stations to have backup power to maintain network coverage in emergencies.
Towong and Strathbogie areas experienced outages due to the Longwood fire. The Natimuk fire area was also affected.
“This is an inconvenience on a normal day, but in the situation we’re in right now, it’s a matter of life and death,” Haines said.
Telstra, TPG and Optus began trialling disaster roaming in November.
The federal government has been working with the industry since 2023, in line with the commitment proposed by the Senate. Connecting the Country report, the ACCC’s regional mobile infrastructure inquiry and the Bean review of the Triple Zero system – and Communications Minister Anika Wells said last year she expected telcos to operate the system.
But Telstra warned that challenges remain.
“During [temporary disaster roaming] An innovative solution with the potential to provide temporary access to communications for regional and rural communities during disaster situations, there are a number of challenges to manage,” Telstra wrote in its November submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the Triple Zero outages.
“These include ensuring that any surviving network is not overloaded by the influx of traffic, causing it to fail, which would be an even worse outcome for the affected community.”
An Optus spokesman said 112 mobile sites were affected by extreme heat and bushfires in Victoria over the weekend, but all had been fully repaired.
“During extreme weather conditions, many facilities lost grid power and operated on battery backup. Our field teams worked around the clock in challenging conditions to commission generators and maintain connectivity for customers,” he said. “Optis sites are designed to have a minimum of four hours of battery backup to ensure service continuity during power outages.”
A federal government spokesman said significant investments were being made through programs to improve the resilience of telecommunications networks.
“Funding for these programs has helped provide backup batteries and generators for communications infrastructure to keep communities connected longer during and after emergencies and natural disasters,” he said.
The federal government is also pursuing a universal outdoor mobile mandate, which it plans to launch in December 2027. The obligation would force telecommunications companies to provide phone call and message coverage, relying in part on satellites rather than solely land-based infrastructure.
National Farmers Federation president Hamish McIntyre, who supports a universal outdoor mobile mandate, is also calling for temporary disaster roaming.
“When natural disasters occur, people should not lose the ability to communicate just because a mobile network goes down. This can cause entire communities to lose communications,” McIntyre said.
“Farmers are often on the front lines of fires, floods and storms and are critical to local emergency response. Communication is key to rapid and effective response.
“We saw the Triple Zero rollback fail in the last outages. Strengthening this system is important, but communities also need to reach out to neighbors, families, and local responders.”
The Australian Communications and Media Authority said in a statement that funding initiatives were helping telecommunications companies prepare for emergencies.
“Telecommunications providers undertake planning to manage power outages and deploy backup generators in the event of a power outage.”
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Rachel Eddie is The Age’s Victorian state political correspondent. Contact her at rachel.eddie@theage.com.au, rachel.eddie@protonmail.com or via Signal at @RachelEddie.99.Connect with: excitement or email.
