Telstra and telco regulator prepare for grilling over widespread outage

The regulator examining the Telstra outage that left people unable to connect to emergency services had months earlier issued legal threats to a consumer group that published unflattering research about access to the Triple Zero (000) phone service.

In March, months before Telstra's nationwide outage on July 8, a survey commissioned by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) found: "One-in-10 consumers report that they or a member of their family could not contact Triple Zero from a mobile phone due to a mobile outage in the past 12 months."

In response, media regulator the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which is now examining Telstra's network outage, demanded the research methodology and other information behind the results.

Unsatisfied with the responses, ACMA threatened ACCAN with hefty penalties and potential jail time for individuals.

ACCAN chief executive Carol Bennett said she was "quite puzzled" when she received the legal demands from ACMA.

"We felt that that was really unnecessary and definitely overreach," she said during a Senate inquiry examining Triple Zero outages.

"It involves a threat of imprisonment or fines of up to $30,000 for individuals or $90,000 per organisation who are non-compliant with the direction."

On Friday, Telstra's chief executive and senior executives will be questioned at a Senate committee about the recent disruptive outage that put lives in danger when intermittent faults meant customers could not contact emergency services.

ACMA is just one agency examining the failure and is also set to be questioned.

On the day of the outage, it said it would open an investigation into whether Telstra had complied with its regulatory obligations, "including those under the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Determination 2019 and Telecommunications (Customer Communications for Outages) Industry Standard 2024".

Survey raises questions about public confidence in Triple Zero

In March, research commissioned by ACCAN cast doubt on the reliability of access to the Triple Zero system from mobile phones.

The survey, run by polling company Essential, found that after the 2025 Optus outage, one in 10 people reported they or a family member had been unable to connect to Triple Zero from a mobile phone in the previous year.

A second survey asked the same question and came up with similar findings.

"We never claimed anything other than what consumers told us was their experience," Ms Bennett said.

"We've run that twice and both times we've received similar results. So it was 10 per cent the first time, 8 per cent the second."

Director of Essential Media Communications Peter Lewis declined to comment, but on his podcast What's Your Poison? expanded on the situation.

"We've had this bizarre thing going on. They (ACCAN) commissioned us to do a poll on consumers' attitudes to 000," he said.

"In my 25 years in the industry I've never seen an industry go so hard at the messenger. We've had legal notes through ACMA … asking us to prove our methodology, we've had to do all these meetings.

"They're very, very sensitive."

The survey was discussed at length by the Senate Environmental and Communications References Committee and was reported on at the time by the Australian Financial Review.

ACMA defends response to 'very concerning' research findings

In a letter to Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who chaired the committee, ACMA chair Nerida O'Loughlin said the action was taken to help the regulator deliver on its mission, and that the findings were serious.

"It raised questions regarding industry compliance with Triple Zero requirements, the robustness of the system overall and the source and depth of consumers' lack of confidence in that system," she said.

The letter confirmed ACMA requested the "research report, research methodology or other information ordinarily published with consumer research findings" on two occasions in March, on a voluntary basis.

ACCAN provided what ACMA called "limited methodological information and data outputs" but not the "methodology, questionnaire design and analytical approach" that underpinned the finding.

ACCAN disputes this, saying it and Essential provided all information requested.

How many emergency calls aren't connected?

Telstra's top lawyer told the committee that the tiny fraction of calls to Triple Zero that did not make it does not match up with the "one in 10" or 8 per cent figure that the ACCAN survey found.

In a letter, Telstra's group general counsel Lyndall Stoyles said that more than 14 million calls were "delivered to the Triple Zero call-taking platform in the past 12 months".

Telstra asks callers if they need police, fire or ambulance services, then sends the call to those services in different states and territories.

"Of these, 4,369 calls were terminated unexpectedly and did not have a sustained connection to the Emergency Call Service," Ms Stoyles said.

"As a percentage, this represents less than 0.0302 per cent of the total attempts to Triple Zero that are capable of detection."

Telstra asked for the "public record to be corrected".

ACCAN's Carol Bennett said it was concerning that the key regulator and provider attacked the survey, rather than looking to fix the problem.

"Our polling points towards a serious public safety issue — and the regulator and industry should be focusing on that, rather than consumer research," Ms Bennett said.

"The industry and the ACMA appear to be more concerned about an embarrassing survey than the reliability of the Triple Zero ecosystem."

ACMA said it took the findings from ACCAN's survey "seriously" and was seeking further information.

In a statement to the ABC, a spokesperson for ACMA said: "We also wanted to understand how the research was derived, as it did not align with other information available to the ACMA, including public reporting to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and evidence tendered to the Triple Zero Service Outage Senate Inquiry".

"We recognise that we could have provided ACCAN with more context about the purpose of issuing a notice and what it was intended to achieve."

"The ACMA appreciates ACCAN's important role as a consumer representative body and we have recently met with ACCAN and their research company to discuss the information disclosed under the notice."