Hi Petition Signers,
For those that missed it, you can watch the recent (5 Feb) 3G Shutdown Senate Inquiry Hearing at the link below.
- Shutdown of the 3G mobile network - Senate Hearing 5 February 2025 (Approx 2hrs 15 mins)
The hearing was certainly interesting, and though we haven't fully got to the bottom of the issue, the tide may start to turn as long as we keep up the pressure. The issues raised by National Farmers' and GrainGrowers were quite interesting and concerning.
What many may also not be aware of is that the Department of Infrastructure (the Communication Minister's Department) actually didn't even show up to the hearing on Wednesday.
There was no-one even in the room at 7:45 PM AEDT.
Hearing was due to run until 8PM.
Due to this the hearing was adjourned and a new hearing with the Department has now been rescheduled for this upcoming Wednesday the 12th of February at 9:15 AM AEDT.
The program has allotted 45 minutes for questions from the Committee until 10 AM AEDT.
You can see the full program at the link below, including a link to the APH livestreams page.
- APH - 3G Shutdown Inquiry - Public Hearings
- 3G Shutdown Senate Hearing - YouTube Live -12 February 2025
- Australian Parliament House Streaming Portal - YouTube
Given the 5 February hearing was late on a Wednesday night and during a sitting day, I think it's better there's another hearing earlier in the day. Only the Department will be attending this hearing.
After the hearing last week it's quite clear that the telcos are very sensitive to being accused of blocking compatible devices they (or their partners) didn't sell, and were sold by a competitor.
They are very quick to deny those claims, but it's an objective fact that it's happening (with Optus especially).
Optus is blocking a large number of officially supported Telstra models, and now they have an IMEI/TAC Checking Tool this is obvious.
The only thing those phones can now do with an Optus sim installed is call 000, however the devices are blocked from all other Optus services.
I've also been able to download the entire list of blocked (& supported) devices from Optus, and it's clear they have basically no idea what devices really work or not.
In an article in the ABC Optus said it had only analysed tens of millions of call records, as opposed to Telstra's billions.
- "Telstra also said it had checked billions of call records, industry records and user device behaviour data to determine which phones were no longer network-compatible."
- "An Optus spokesperson told the ABC it had analysed tens of millions of call records to determine which devices used by its customers were no longer able to call triple-0."
Telstra's block list appears to be 'more accurate' due to this, though with both lists there are devices currently allowed to connect that do not support VoLTE at all, let alone emergency calling.
The fact Optus themselves say they only analysed ‘tens of millions of call records’, compared to Telstra’s Billions, clearly highlights the lack of proper analysis by Optus prior to switch off.
I mean this shouldn't be a surprise given this is the same company that couldn't configure their network correctly and in November 2023 the country experienced a major 12 hour network outage, along with 2,700 people being unable to call 000. So the incompetence is endemic it seems.
Out of the 246,162 TACs I've downloaded on Optus's Checker they have blocked 25,065 Models (TACs), that includes 3G, 4G and 5G devices.
It's worth noting the vast majority of the 246K odd TACs in existence include IoT Hardware, older 2G/3G devices and 'non-brand name' (i.e OEM) devices.
However, even if there were only 10 of each blocked device in use at the time of the shutdown, that would be 250,650 devices blocked on Optus alone! That also doesn't take into consideration the older spare or backup phones people have either.
Optus are still blocking some new Xiaomi Devices that were sold for the Australian Market (Redmi NOTE 12 TAC 86943907). Though many have been unblocked since November.
You can see the full list on my 'Blocked Device Google Sheet' on the 'OPTUS TAC Checker' tab.
The ACMA is also clearly either entirely unaware of the issues or they don't even remotely care.
As revealed at the hearing they didn't even ask for the number of devices the telcos ended up blocking!
They said to a Senator 'No, there's no requirement for them to tell us that!' the Senator asked in response and said 'why not?', the response was a long 'Umm.....Hmmmmm'.
Like seriously?! You can see it for yourself here.
Those that saw the recent story about the ACMA sending draft press releases to the telcos prior to fining them probably won't find this at all surprising.
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-28/telecommunications-regulator-optus-telstra-parliamentary-inquiry/104862920
I note there have been calls from some Senators and other commentators that we need an Inquiry into the ACMA, and I completely agree.
The telco regulator should be a corporate watchdog, not a lapdog.
They seem to be completely and utterly allergic to doing even the basics.
Additionally neither they nor the Department ever bothered to meet with me to discuss this issue.
The ACCC did, but absolute crickets from the Department and ACMA, not even a token meeting.
What is interesting is that within the last 6 months many European providers have announced significant delays to shutting down their 2G/3G networks, with many now not switching those networks off until around 2028-2029!
This includes countries like Estonia, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and more.
This in addition to the existing delays for France and the UK up until around 2029-2030.
T-Mobile's 2G in the US is actually still in service right now in many areas, though is due to be switched off this month.
Since 2022 the presence of T-Mobile's 2G Network has been masking a lot of the compatibility issues, especially with emergency calls with roaming tourists.
For European Regulators Australia has become a perfect example of what not to do and why the world needs to wait to transition away from 2G/3G.
It's also worth mentioning that Telstra has now unblocked a number of newer 5G Xperia Devices.
This includes the IV, V and VI series of the Xperia 1s, 5s and 10s.
Older III and below series are still largely blocked, except the US and Japan Xperia 5 III's (XQ-BQ42 & XQ-BQ62).
The latest Sony Android 15 update for those newer devices has enabled VoLTE support for Telstra with an updated 'ROW Commercial' Modem config.
It seems these devices were unblocked in the last few weeks, some time after the 5th of January.
Those devices could still call 000 on Telstra anyway with previous firmware versions, yet Telstra still decided to block them.
Those newer devices also still show up as being blocked by Optus as of the 20th of January.
Seeing how the ACMA doesn't want to take any responsibility and the telcos have been left to do as they please, then the Department will need to front up and take responsibility for what's occured, along with the Minister.
Hopefully we see the Senators put some pressure on the Department about these issues, and some sort of solution can be found.
Also at the hearing last week we heard about the very serious issues with network coverage in remote and regional areas, from drop calls 000, slow speeds and inconsistent connectivity.
The whole shutdown has been terribly mismanaged and all of it was entirely foreseeable. The telcos seem more interested in gaslighting their customers and the public than really fixing issues.
Hopefully the findings from this Committee and Inquiry can help ensure that something like this never happens again and there is proper oversight going forward of the telcos, regulators and sector at large. However that remains to be seen.
Concerns raised by the public need to be taken seriously and not ignored for months.
We need to ensure that commercial interests are not put above and at the expense of public interests, especially for something as critical as telecommunications and Triple Zero.
Once again, thank you for all the support and interest with this to date, and I hope the Committee come out with some sensible recommendations in their report due later this month.
I will keep you updated if there are any further developments.
Regards
James