Australians outraged at telco providers' emergency service failures, missed sales and frozen banking apps

7NEWS

4 days ago

As Australia becomes increasingly dependent on telecommunications services, consumers and businesses expect a reliable network provider and not one that works some of the time.
Aside from frustration and inconvenience, studies show network outages are exceedingly costly for businesses in a world where cash is becoming increasingly obsolete.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Service provider disruptions cost Australian millions
New research from PagerDuty, a global leader in digital operations, has revealed Australians lost an estimated 73 million hours of operation in the past year.
The release showed that 41 per cent of Australians experienced a system failure, incident or outage with their telecommunications provider in the last 12 months.
In addition, a March report from cybersecurity and observability leader Splunk revealed that unplanned tech disruptions are costing businesses with over 500 employees a staggering $86 billion.
Independent telecommunications analyst Paul Budde spoke to 7NEWS exclusively about the dangers of frequent outages.
'People are affected by it (outages) ... particularly in health care services, education services where it gets cut and it's dangerous,' Budde said.
'People can lose their life if the telephone isn't working.'
Budde also detailed the reason behind these outages is often linked to human error, continuous updates and software changes.
'They (telecommunications providers) are highly cost driven ... cost cutting all the time in order to keep profitable,' he said.
'Obviously, in a process like that, you can see mistakes are made and then it becomes easier for outages to occur.'
If this issue is posing a significant threat to life and business, what then is being done?
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) recently introduced stronger consumer protections to safeguard Australians.
These protections include customers being informed of the outages when they occur, the locations that are affected, and the likely cause.
Providers will also be responsible for detailing the services their outage will impact, and the estimated timeframe consumers should expect to see the issue resolved.
Member for the ACMA Samantha Yorke spoke on the changes, considering them vital to addressing the substantial impact these outages have on individuals and communities.
'It's not just frustrating, it can cause significant issues, including disrupting businesses and impacting public safety,' Yorke said.
New obligations will require telecommunications services to provide greater certainty that calls to emergency services will be carried by an available network in the event of an outage.
'Improving industry accountability for the carriage of calls to Triple Zero will give Australians greater confidence that their safety is prioritised when networks are down,' Yorke said.