{"id":340342,"date":"2023-11-10T15:43:35","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T05:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=340342"},"modified":"2023-11-10T15:44:53","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T05:44:53","slug":"roaming-call-after-optus-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2023\/11\/10\/roaming-call-after-optus-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Roaming’ Call After Optus Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nationals Leader David Littleproud has again called for mobile roaming, especially in regional, rural and remote Australia (Photo: Maranoa Electorate Office)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

November 10, 2023<\/strong>
\nNationals Leader David Littleproud has called for mandated domestic mobile roaming in regional, rural and remote Australia in the wake of the Optus outage.<\/p>\n

The 13-hour outage, which occurred on Thursday, was the longest and largest in recent memory and has prompted several Federal Government enquiries. <\/p>\n

Mr Littleproud said the outage underlined the need to introduce mandated mobile roaming, by firstly piloting in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia, while broader capacity in the network could be built up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must ensure the outage that occurred with Optus never happens again,\u201d Mr Littleproud said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a common sense approach to this problem. <\/p>\n

“By starting mobile roaming in regional, rural and remote areas we can target it in the areas of greatest need, while potential pressures of roaming on metropolitan network capacity can be worked through before rolling out in the densely populated capital cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe urgency for the regions is the tyranny of distance we face and the threat of natural disaster emergencies such as the upcoming bushfire season.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Littleproud said Australia doesn\u2019t even allow for emergency mobile roaming (although it does allow for emergency calls to 000) which was a significant safety issue in regional areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ACCC recently completed an inquiry into regional mobile infrastructure and found that emergency mobile roaming is beneficial during times of natural disasters or other emergencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Communications Minister and Emergency Management Minister have both tasked their respective departments to work with carriers and report back to the government by March 2024.”<\/p>\n

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