The government ordered an investigation into last year's Optus outage. Now its findings are in
The government ordered an investigation into last year's Optus outage. Now its findings are in
Telcos will be forced to share real-time network information during outages and set up a body to take charge of Australia's triple-0 system, in the wake of last year's Optus outage.
The report found a key cause of the outage was a problem with Optus's 3G network.
During the outage, Optus's 4G and 5G towers shut down, meaning emergency calls were diverted to other network's towers — known as camping on.
But the network's 3G base towers did not shut down, so those calls got lost along the way.
"Some devices … attempted to make emergency calls via those [3G] towers (rather than look to camp on to another network), even though no mobile service was being supplied by the Optus network," the report said.
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The recommendations include:
- Obligate telcos to shut down their towers during outages, allowing triple-0 calls to be carried by other networks
- Establish a "Triple Zero custodian" whose sole responsible is to make sure the system is working
- Force telcos to share real-time information about outages with emergency services organisations and authorities
- Force telcos to file a timely post-mortem on major outages to the regulator and the government — including what caused it and steps being taken to resolve it, with a clear and detailed timeline
- Review the government's contract with Telstra to run the triple-0 system, with any changes to be made within a year
- Introduce an industry-wide approach to responding to consumers affected by large-scale outages
- Establish an agreement between telcos requiring them to help each to manage and resolve outages
- Review all legislation and regulation relating to triple-0
This is all super fascinating from a macro view. Originally telephony services (landlines) were provided by a government utility. That utility was privatised in the late-20th century with certain guarantees that they will continue to provide a certain standard of telephony services.
Along come all these mobile carriers, who are providing a private service without the same level of assurance they will meet those requirements. You probably don’t notice, but when you sign up to a mobile or VoIP telephony service, you’ll routinely agree to waive those guarantees (do a quick google of “csg waiver”). In short: Most non-Telstra carriers won’t/don’t actually guarantee you can reach 000, or meet the government CSG. Only that they’ll try their best.
It looks like the government is considering stepping in and putting an end to that practice. It’ll be a huge shake up to the telco industry.
Originally telephony services (landlines) were provided by a government utility.
...
Along come all these mobile carriers, who are providing a private service without the same level of assurance they will meet those requirements.
There is literally no example of a Government service that has been improved with privatisation. Why do "we" (the voting public) keep falling for this shit?
Because we don't get a say
Well, for a start - Telstra still honours the CSG. You could argue that Telstra today is better than Telecom of the 90's. But, it's impossible to say how much Telecom would have evolved and improved with the same technology advancements that have come along. I seriously doubt that Telecom would have jumped into the Internet space as quickly as Telstra did. Even Telstra was a bit late to the Internet Provider party.
Why do “we” (the voting public) keep falling for this shit?
It's not so much the things that are privatised, it's what that privatisation pays for. Recent WA privatisations are paying for Metronet - which is a massive uplift to the Perth's public transport network, providing new lines, stations and trains. Hundreds of thousands of people are benefiting from that.
Good luck getting Optus, a communications company, to promptly and accurately communicate with its customers.
Optus said it was preparing for the 3G shutdown by enhancing 4G and 5G coverage and encouraging impacted customers to upgrade their devices.
It's all fun and games till 3g is dead and we have 3/4 of the phone coverage we used to have. Everyone cracks the shits when the data sucks and I get it. But people die when calls fail or cant even be made.
Aren't the teclos repurposing the 3G infrastructure for 4G?
Yes, but the technology doesn’t have as long range.
The higher density signal is able to carry more data at higher speeds, but only for shorter distances.
A loose analogy is the difference between Short Wave radio and Long Wave radio. The BBC World Service can be received around the world, but 3PBS FM can only be received in the inner suburbs of Melbourne.
Meanwhile, they are pushing Fixed Mobile on 4G or LTE in place of real fixed Fibre Internet; the incumbents can duopolise the mobile market, but the NBN has levelled the market on fixed Internet, except where the NBN has been sabotaged by the incumbents.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
"No single body could see the whole picture.
This significantly hampered the dissemination of accurate and timely advice to the community," report lead Richard Bean wrote.
"It would not appear that Optus followed any of the guidance in this document," the report said.
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