Perhaps we will return to public ownership of infrastructure networks. But for now we need to consider limited steps, with a more radical solution for fragile emergency services
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Another year, another telecommunications failure. In 2025, it was Optus whose network failed, leading to hundreds of triple-zero calls failing to get through. This time, it was Telstra, with similarly chaotic results. As I pointed out last time around, outcomes like this are the inevitable result of a policy framework designed to put more priority on competition than on the reliable delivery of essential services.
The failures go right back to the policy reforms of the 1990s, still viewed through rose-coloured glasses by much of the commentariat. At the start of the process, Australia had a single telephone network run by a statutory corporation (Telecom Australia) which had delivered steady reductions in cost and expansion in services over many decades. The looming challenge was the new technology of broadband fibre and cellular mobile telephony.