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Carriers must publish a register of major outages and significant local outages that have been resolved from 31 March 2026, including outages that started before but extended beyond this date. The outage register must present outage information in a consistent, standardised and extractable format to support improved transparency and data analysis across the sector. Carriage service providers (CSPs) using a carrier’s network are also required to publish a link to the carrier’s outage register.
Outage registers are intended to work alongside – not replace – existing live outage notifications and reporting obligations, and serve as a historical single point of record.
For full details of the rules, see Part 4 of the Telecommunications (Customer Communications for Outages) Industry Standard 2024 (CCO Standard).
Who the rules apply to
The rules apply to carriers whose telecommunications networks are used to supply relevant carriage services to end users. This includes downstream carriers, not only the ‘responsible carrier’ that first detected the outage. As a result, information about the same underlying outage may appear in multiple carriers’ outage registers, reflecting different points in the supply chain and each carrier’s view of the impact on its services.
CSPs are not required to maintain their own outage register. Instead, they must provide a public link to the outage register of the relevant carrier whose network they use.
Frequently asked questions
Read our responses to questions about the new rules.
Carriers must record information about:
- major outages
- significant local outages.
This includes outages that either:
- started before but extended beyond 31 March 2026
- began on or after 31 March 2026.
The outage register entry must include key information for each recorded outage, including the:
- date and time the outage commenced
- date and time the outage was resolved (that is, when all relevant carriage services were restored)
- total duration of the outage
- geographic areas impacted
- types and numbers of relevant carriage services impacted
- number of fixed-line premises impacted
- cause of the outage.
The information needs to be completed to the extent it is known, technically practicable, appropriate and relevant to the outage.
For full details of the required fields, see Schedule 1 of the Standard.
Yes.
The outage register must include a field to indicate when an outage was caused by weather or natural events.
The outage register must be made available on the carrier’s website, on another carrier’s website or on another website suitable for public access.
The outage register, or a link to it, must be displayed in a prominent position and meet international accessibility guidelines.
It must also be available for download in CSV format, in accordance with the specified data entry requirements.
No.
Carriers may present the information on their public website in any layout or format they consider suitable. However, the information must correspond to – and be clearly mappable to – the fields set out in Schedule 1 of the Standard.
Carriers must update the outage register entry within 3 days of becoming aware of any inaccuracies or new information.
The CCO Standard accommodates varying levels of network visibility. Certain fields are subject to qualifiers such as:
- ‘to the extent that it is known by the carrier’
- ‘to the extent technically practicable and relevant’
- ‘if appropriate’
- ‘if relevant’.
Schedule 1 also includes options for responses where information is not visible to the carrier. These qualifiers recognise differences in network architecture, data availability and supply-chain roles, while supporting transparency in a way that is operationally feasible.
Carriers are only required to include information to the extent it is known, visible and applicable to them, and may rely on these qualifiers where full information is unavailable.