Q: What are the new rules?
A: New rules (set out in the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Amendment Determination 2025 (No. 1), referred to here as the ECS Determination) require telcos to:
- wilt facilities in the event they lose connectivity to a core network
- take steps to prevent the provider’s facilities from impeding emergency call camp-on functionality during an outage
- test that emergency calls can be delivered to the emergency call persons, including when using the emergency call camp-on functionality
- share information about outages with specified entities
- report specified information to the ACMA and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts after a major outage that affects the delivery of emergency calls, setting out how similar outages will be prevented in the future.
Q: Who do the new rules apply to?
A: Most of these new rules apply to carriers but there are some changes to existing rules that apply to carriage service providers as well.
Q: When do the new rules start?
A: The rules start on 1 November 2025.
Q: What are the circumstances for wilting facilities and how does this help?
A: If a mobile base station loses all connectivity to its core network and cannot carry emergency calls, the carrier must ‘wilt’ the base station. This will force emergency calls to be carried by another mobile network if it is available and within range via emergency call camp-on functionality.
Q: Is there an exemption to the wilting rule?
A: Carriers in a multi-operator core network arrangement that have arranged for emergency calls to be carried by another core network connected to the mobile base station in an outage are not required to wilt.
Q: What is ‘real-time network information’ about outages?
A: Information about the scale, cause, impact areas, types of services affected, and estimated times for updates and restoration of services.
Q: Who is required to provide ‘real-time network information’ about outages?
A: Carriers that have either a major or significant network outage.
Q: Who receives the real time network information?
A: The emergency call persons for 000 and 112, and 106, emergency service organisations in the state or territory affected by the outage, the ACMA, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts and the National Emergency Management Agency.
These are the relevant email addresses that carriers must send information to:
| ECP for 000 and 112: | |
| ECP for 106: | emergencycontact@relayservice.com.au |
| ESOs | We’ll provide contact details for in early June 2025. |
| ACMA: | emergencycallservices@acma.gov.au |
| Department: | |
| NEMA: | We’ll provide contact details before 30 June 2025. |
Q: Is the real-time network information under the ECS Determination the same information required under the Customer Communications for Outages Standard?
A: Yes. The information about the outage is the same, but the recipients are different. One set of information can be sent to entities to satisfy the requirements under both the ECS Determination and the Customer Communications for Outages Standard.
Carriers are only required to provide real-time network information if an outage affects emergency calls on its network.
Q: What if, at the time of the outage, a carrier doesn’t know all the real-time network information that is required to be provided?
A: Carriers are required to provide the information available to them at the time they are sharing it. If, for example, the cause of outage is not known immediately, a carrier is not required to provide information about the cause. If the cause is known at the time of the next update, a carrier must provide information about the cause in that update.