Hi Petition Signers,
As a reminder, on Wednesday the 5th of February there is another public hearing for the 'Shutdown of the 3G Mobile Network' Senate Inquiry.
Last week the full hearing program was published and it's due to start at 5:30PM (AEDT) until 8PM.
You can see the full program and witness list at the link below.
APH - 3G Shutdown Inquiry - Public Hearings
It will also be broadcast live, links below.
At the hearing will be Telstra, Optus, the ACMA, the ACCC and the Department on Infrastructure. Representatives from the 'National Farmers' Federation' and 'GrainGrowers' will also be speaking.
Additionally in the last couple of weeks Optus quietly released an online 'Device Blocking' Checker tool. Telstra's had a checker for months so it's about time.
Optus TAC Checker: https://www.optus.com.au/support/checkdevice
Having queried over 2,000 Device TACs through the Optus Checker Tool it's abundantly clear they have no idea what works, especially for phones they didn't sell.
The telcos need to be forced to actually publish a real list of blocked and unblocked devices and make it easily accessible to the public.
The lists also need to state with clear detail why a device is blocked or not, and the exact criteria that resulted in that device being classified that way.
This approach of obfuscating what devices are blocked, not blocked and why, does nothing for competition and consumers at large. It needs to be public.
The telcos currently get to hide behind saying “that device is incompatible with our network” without having to provide any specific detail of proof to explain why.
Based on the data I’ve been able to generate through the Telstra and Optus block checkers, it’s very clear that devices with higher numbers of emergency calls have been allowed whereas others have not, despite otherwise working exactly the same.
There are also many devices currently allowed to connect that don't support VoLTE at all, let alone Emergency Calling.
You can see a bulk list I generated on my 'Blocked Devices' Google Sheet.
4G/5G Device Blocking & Capabilities Submission Results (Public Version)
I hope these and other issues are thoroughly discussed at the Wednesday hearing and we can start getting some real answers and a resolution to all of this.
On Tuesday I sent through to the Committee some further information about what's going on, so I look forward to seeing what comes out at the hearing.
Thank you for all the support and interest with this to date.
Regards
James