ACCAN - Australia's peak communications consumer group - today welcomed the news that the Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland has directed the ACMA to establish an industry standard to ensure telecommunications companies communicate with consumers in the event of an outage.
This reform follows advocacy from ACCAN and other organisations which led to a recommendation in the Bean Review into the Optus Outage of 8 November 2023 that there needed to be a clear industry standard to protect consumers from future outages.
ACCAN CEO Carol Bennett said that the new industry standard is important because consumers need clear, concise and timely information in the event of an outage.
"A telecommunications outage is extraordinarily difficult, disruptive and dangerous. When we lose the connectivity which we rely on for work, study, basic transactions, health and safety, consumers expect clear information so that they can take steps to manage the impact."
"An outage can be made worse if clear communication is not given by a telco as to what the problem is, what they are doing to solve the problem, the extent of the issue and an estimated resolution timeframe," Ms Bennett said.
"During the Optus outage last November, consumers and businesses were beyond frustrated by Optus' slow response to basic questions about the outage. This standard will help to prevent this from happening in the future by requiring telcos to act in a clear and timely manner."
"We thank the Minister for implementing this important reform and look forward to working with government, the ACMA and industry to develop this important Standard," Ms Bennett concluded.
