Significant progress in improving Australia's network resilience

One year on from the infamous Optus outage, Communications Alliance — the peak body of the telecommunications industry — has announced that significant progress has been made in improving Australia’s network resilience and emergency connectivity.

As noted by Comms Alliance CEO Luke Coleman, “Secure and resilient critical infrastructure is central to Comms Alliance’s work, and our sector has banded together to make significant improvements to the resilience of telecoms networks and connectivity during emergencies.” Indeed, Comms Alliance and Australia’s telcos have actively responded to the recommendations of the post-incident review report led by former Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) Deputy Chair Richard Bean.

Recommendations 3 and 4 of the Bean Review called for regular testing of the Triple Zero ecosystem, including networks, devices and interoperability across the ecosystem. In light of this, Coleman said, “Comms Alliance has led a working committee from across the industry to develop a new industry code and technical guideline for device testing, to ensure that handsets are capable of making calls to Triple Zero both on their usual network and also when ‘camping on’ to a different network if their usual network is hit by an outage.”

Following the development of testing arrangements by the UTS Tech Lab, Comms Alliance will finalise and submit the code to the regulator in early 2025. Comms Alliance is also establishing a new industry working group charged with operationalising the testing system on an ongoing basis.

To further improve the technical capabilities of networks during emergencies, Comms Alliance is leading industry collaboration with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and other departments on the National Messaging System (NMS). The NMS will allow emergency services to send targeted warning messages to mobile phones using emergency cell broadcast technology, enabling agencies to securely provide information about emergencies like natural disasters or security threats in a given location directly to mobiles.

A third initiative led by Comms Alliance is updating the Australian Standard for mobile devices to ensure they meet new technical requirements for emergency calls (AS/CA S042). As one of just five accredited Standards Development Organisations in Australia, Comms Alliance leads a working committee to update the Standard so mobile device companies can test and certify customer equipment for the Australian market. Adherence to this Standard is also enforced by the ACMA.

Comms Alliance is also leading the industry’s response to recommendation 16 of the Bean Review, which places new requirements on telcos for remote access to network management tools in the event of an outage. Comms Alliance will bring this recommendation to life via updates to the Emergency Call Service Requirements Industry Code (C536:2020), as well as developing a new technical guideline for telcos on network management for emergency calls, anticipated to be complete early in 2025. Like all of the organisation’s codes, the Emergency Call Service Requirements Industry Code is registered with, and enforced by, the ACMA.

Report calls for further action

Comms Alliance’s updates were announced just weeks after the release of a new report from The Australian National University (ANU), which found that Australia is taking proactive steps to enhance the resilience of its telecommunications sector but further action is needed.

Australia’s Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts tasked ANU’s Tech Policy Design Centre (TPDC) with independently mapping the Australian telecommunications sector in order to better understand the risk landscape and whole-of-sector resilience. It has previously been difficult to assess the resilience of the sector due to different approaches by individual enterprises and levels of government, as well as a lack of a shared understanding of what resilience involves.

The resulting report, Australian Telecommunications Sector Resilience Profile, is claimed to be a world first — combining risk and resilience, taking an all-hazards approach and adopting a sector-wide perspective. It also develops a sector resilience maturity model — a new analytical framework for assessing sector resilience at the national level.

At the time of the report’s release, TPDC had assessed the maturity level of the Australian telecommunications sector as ‘developing’; level two on a five-point scale. This indicates that while basic resilience measures are in place, further action is needed to enhance coordination and resource allocation across the sector.

“Resilience is a hot topic, but as a methodology, it is comparatively new,” said Professor Johanna Weaver, Founding Director of the TPDC. “It’s not surprising, therefore, that resilience in the Australian telecommunications sector is still developing.

“Our research shows that Australia is starting from a good foundation and, importantly, there is strong appetite from all stakeholders — in government, industry and civil society — to do better.

“I commend the government for commissioning this work. It’s only by understanding the current state that progress can be measured. This report is an invitation and a roadmap to enhance the resilience of the telecommunications sector on which all Australians depend every day.”

The report was refined, shaped and endorsed by a 26-member Risk and Resilience Expert Panel consisting of diverse practitioners with backgrounds in engineering, network architecture, climate change research, government, enterprise and strategic policy. Its findings are a product of extensive consultations with more than 200 stakeholders representing all states, territories and the federal government, plus representatives from industry, consumer groups, and dependent and interdependent sectors.

The report lays the groundwork for deepening collaborative efforts to enhance Australia’s ability to withstand and recover from inevitable disruptions, providing a benchmark and essential evidence base for decision-makers, industry, government and the technical community. Furthermore, while the methodology was developed to profile the telecommunications sector, it is translatable to other critical sectors.

“The release of this report marks a significant step forward in enhancing the resilience of Australia’s telecommunications sector,” Weaver said. “It highlights not just the challenges, but also the tremendous opportunities we have to build a more robust and reliable network for all Australians.”

The full report, as well as its key findings, can be viewed at https://techpolicydesign.au/telecommunications_sector.

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