Telcos face renewed pressure after fire outages leave people stranded and desperate

“Our teams restarted services the next day when access to the site was secure,” Holobowski said.

Loading

He noted that Telstra had brought more than 100 mobile sites back online last week.

Federal member for Indi Helen Haines yesterday 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.”