- Communications for emergency services and natural disasters
Overview
6.1During the inquiry, the Committee heard the concerns of residents from small rural communities, such as Reedy Marsh and Tea Tree in Tasmania; Manoora in South Australia; Bruce Rock in Western Australia, and in regional northern Victoria, all of whom suffered poor mobile coverage during emergencies, road accidents and natural disasters, including floods and bushfires. Police peak associations also raised concerns about community safety in black spots and that advanced law enforcement and policing on the road is severely compromised when there is inadequate or no mobile coverage.
Telecommunications in disasters and emergencies
6.2The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts (DITRDCA) submitted that mobile services can significantly enhance safety in disasters and emergencies and support emergency services agencies in responding to critical incidents.
6.3According to research commissioned by the Australian Communications ConsumerAction Network (ACCAN) in 2022, mobile phone service is regarded as essential bythe majority (84 per cent) of consumers; and 88 per cent of Australians expect their phone and internetservices to work during emergencies. However, the Committee heard from people who had experienced telecommunications outages in natural disasters, andfrom others who were concerned about a lack of service in the event of anemergency in their community.
6.4West Australian farmer Mrs Judith Foss of GrainGrowers Ltd recalled the perils of experiencing total loss of mobile coverage during bushfires in 2022 near her family’s property:
There was no mobile reception. The tower went out at Corrigin, which was further south. With the area that was burnt, there was no mobile reception in the first place. It was probably one of the most horrific days. I dropped my husband off to go and fight the fire, and most people didn't know the area very well. I am shocked that there were no injuries and no loss of life.
6.5Mr Andrew Ricketts of Reedy Marsh, Tasmania, said natural emergencies were of ‘relevance and a public interest that can't be overlooked when considering the amount of infrastructure that's required’ to improve mobile phone coverage:
Many people in my locality of Reedy Marsh don't have mobile phone reception. It's quite clear that, for places like ours, the copper lines are not being maintained.
…it's essential that not only our emergency services have access, that people have access to data and phone communication in emergencies. … When I talk to people on the mainland, the problems are widespread in rural Australia. It's not reasonable that a phone provider calls themselves a national provider but is actually a suburban provider. The example of Tea Tree, on the outskirts of Hobart, is an excellent one.
6.6Mrs Donna Terry, President of the Tea Tree Community Association, said her community just 25 kilometres north of Hobart is in a road accident black spot with no mobile coverage:
We have huge road use, so we have thousands that pass through our community. But for all of our community venues … there is no mobile service. Our volunteer fire brigade can't get their phone service if ever they are required to go to a fire.
6.7Tasman Council Mayor, Mr Rod MacDonald said poor mobile coverage in his rural peninsula was a ‘total failure of the market’. He explained: ‘The impacts of [not having mobile service] are huge. When on the road our emergency services can't get access to data for emergencies.’ He gave an example of ideal mobile connectivity for an ambulance, contrasted against the situation in his municipality:
If there's a crash or an incident, they rely on their iPads to go online to get data about drugs or treatment. They've got their networks that they can use. …
In our area, the ambulance officers and paramedics tell me they can't get access to those because they've got too many black spots, or they have service, but the data has been cut back…
6.8The Surf Coast Shire in south-west Victoria, with a population of around 37,000 and including the coastal townships of Torquay, Anglesea and Lorne, as well as hinterland towns such as Winchelsea and Moriac, claimed to be ‘one of the highest risk bush fire zones in Australia, if not the world’:
Paradoxically, the greater the fire risk, the more likely it is there will be high numbers of visitors on a given day, given the appeal of Surf Coast Shire beaches. … In this setting, mobile phones are the most likely means for visitors to receive emergency alerts, including evacuation advice. Mobile coverage, which can already be sporadic given the steep and heavily forested terrain, is further compromised when high numbers of people are attempting to access the network.
6.9The Police Federation of Australia (PFA) argued there has not been an inquest or inquiry held into a natural disaster such as floods, bushfires, and cyclones in recent times where ‘communications, within and between agencies, has not been raised as an issue of concern’:
This is particularly the case in regional, rural, and remote parts of Australia.
Communications are a critical operational component for police and other emergency services, particularly during natural disasters such as fires, floods, and other major weather events. Loss of contact can be the difference between life and death in many incidents.
6.10Ms Hannah Wandel from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said Australia’s telecommunications infrastructure is being impacted upon by increasingly frequent and more severe natural disasters influenced by climate change:
As a result, our risk landscape is growing in complexity. In particular, we recognise the challenges that natural hazards such as bushfires, cyclones and floods pose for telecommunications infrastructure and the importance of reliable communications for community and human safety. This is especially pronounced in regional, rural and remote Australia.
6.11Evidence received noted tourists visiting rural, regional and remote areas could be more vulnerable following road accidents due to a lack of mobile coverage, while their numbers also placed additional pressure on mobile networks in the event of a bushfire or other natural emergency.
Importance of telecommunications for emergency services
6.12The Committee heard directly from representatives of police and fire services and others about the importance of reliable telecommunication services.
6.13Mr Scott Weber, Chief Executive Officer of the Police Federation of Australia (PFA), said the PFA’s review ofmajor operations had outlined a raft of issues, including ‘black spots for voice and other telecommunications, slow data speed, outages, damage to communication infrastructure, lack of interoperable capabilities between agencies, and inadequate spectrum allocation of data communication to the needs of emergency services’:
For us, this is life and death stuff. … it's imperative to ensure that telecommunications companies do not cut back on their investments in regional mobile infrastructure or attempt to get a free ride from other telcos orgovernment investments. …
A lot of our members want to respond instantaneously to jobs, but then sometimes we have to wait for backup because the comms aren't working…we might be putting community members in jeopardy because we're not responding quickly enough. … Information is power and it's also safety for our job.
6.14Mr Wayne Gatt, Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the Police Association Victoria (PAV), which represents 18,000 police, said establishing and maintaining effective communications infrastructure across Australia, and ‘especially in regional, rural and remote areas, is critical to ensuring that police and emergency service workers have the tools required to protect the Australian community’:
While police rely on their radios primarily to communicate with each other through a closed network, maintaining a reliable, operable telephone network is essential to enable police communication with stakeholders and the community directly. … Over the past two decades at least, police have reported experiencing communication black spots at metro, regional and rural police stations; at metropolitan shopping centres; when working at preliminary breath testing sites; when working on patrol; and when working in remote areas more broadly, including as recently as the COVID‑19 pandemic.
6.15Mr Gatt said police increasingly depend on reliable access to wi-fi and mobile data in the course of their duties, with a rapid escalation in use and reliance in the past six years:
Increasingly, work performed by police is done on the road and not in the office, and it relies heavily on mobile data networks. For example, the use of mobile data facilitates suspect checks, and the direct passage of information on things like warning flags, records of intelligence, access to maps, public service information and community referrals.
…Going forward, reliance on mobiles in policing will only become more critical as our reliance continues to grow on this technology and intelligence-led policing is driven directly by mobile data access.
6.16Mr Brett Loughlin, Australian Fire Service Medal (AFSM), Chief Officer of the South Australian Country Fire Service (CFS), said the CFS was an ‘all hazards agency…not defined by bushfire alone ‘that responds to vehicle-related incidents, structure fires and hazardous material threats, and assists agencies such as ambulance and police.’ Mr Loughlin identified the importance of reliable communications in emergency situations:
…the location of natural disasters rarely aligns with the areas of good mobile phone and data coverage. Things like challenging terrain, …coverage and limited capacity due to the infrastructure are challenging factors. These challenges are also compounded by the loss of mobile towers when emergencies occur and widespread power outages that often accompany these events as well.
6.17Mr Loughlin said reliable mobile connectivity opened up possibilities for more modern emergency management:
That internet of things is coming. We need to be able to capitalise on it. The benefit of being able to operate self-driving machinery or report accurately on thelocation of fire trucks and send and receive intelligence in real time also hasbenefits to the businesses that are thriving or seeking to thrive rural Australia.
Protecting mobile infrastructure in disasters
6.18Several witnesses and submitters noted the challenge involved in protecting telecommunications and ensuring services remain available during and after disasters, particularly in the event of a power outage.
6.19Reflecting on disaster situations, Mr Loughlin of the South Australian CFS stated he would be reluctant to risk lives defending mobile phone towers:
…we're not going to put volunteer firefighters or paid firefighters on top of a hill todefend a phone tower where the fire behaviour will be at its absolute peak. So, when that tower is lost, it then has significant impact on our ability to get warning messages out to the community and the community's ability to recover from that emergency, because they can't coordinate their actions.
6.20Mr Loughlin said the cost involved in hardening towers’ ability to withstand natural disaster may be prohibitive, so redundancy in the network was important. However, Mr Loughlin said it should nevertheless be mandated that mobile infrastructure be hardened and better protected from bushfires in high risk areas by clearing land surrounding towers:
I don't think that we can treat [these facilities] as throwaway items because to re-establish a mobile phone tower post a fire emergency, as we saw during the major fires in the Adelaide Hills and on Kangaroo Island in the 2019/2020 season, isn't an easy process. It requires our resources to support the technicians and the engineers from the telcos to be able to access these areas and get equipment in. All these things then detract from our ability to do other things that we're trying to do. .
6.21Optus said power outages were the ‘main reason mobile services are disrupted in some emergency situations caused by natural disasters, particularly the fires and floods experienced in NSW and Victoria in recent years’:
The telecommunications industry has invested heavily in ensuring sites, particularly those in vulnerable areas, are made to be as resilient as possible. This has included increased back up battery power, transient generators, cells onwheels (COWs) and other temporary facilities such as Satellite COWs (SATCOWs). Some of these efforts have also been supported by the Federal Government’s Mobile Network Hardening Program (MNHP).
6.22Optus declared the industry has also pushed for greater transparency and engagement with power companies as it is ‘critical that telecommunications facilities are prioritised for access to mains power so that we are able to reconnect customers, households, and businesses as quickly as possible, when it matters most’.
6.23Ms Karen Chappel, President of the WA Local Government Association (WALGA), also warned thatdespite recent investments by the Australian Government and carriers, a ‘significant proportion of mobile telephone cells have little or no power backup’:
More than 900 sites have no or inadequate battery backup. Emergency broadcasts through the ABC do not cut the mustard. Everybody now depends on mobile telephones; that is just the reality of it.
6.24Similarly, Mr Michael O'Callaghan, from WA Grains Group noted the vulnerability of emergency systems that depend on mobile-based warnings. He expressed surprise at the lack of power backup in some new Telstra mobile towers in WA:
We need all our towers in these areas with backup when the power goes down. The biggest thing is safety of staff. A lot of the apps that are developed these days are mobile-based: tracking staff, looking after staff, and staff being able to communicate in an emergency are absolutely vital.
6.25Mr Alun Davies submitted that if renewable energy in-situ was used to power mobile tower sites, the sites ‘would not lose power due to the often long power lines to sites being burnt down’, thus improving the safety of fire crews and enabling better management of bushfires.
6.26Ms Chappel noted there had been significant investment in non-terrestrial communications hubs at evacuation centres to ameliorate the reliance on infrastructure which can be fire-damaged and cuts key communications.
We acknowledge that 370 emergency satellite-based Wi-Fi services were installed in local government evacuation centres. That was valuable, and will always be valuable going forward, for natural disasters.
Improving reliability in disasters and emergencies
6.27The Committee received a range of suggestions for measures to improve the reliability of telecommunications services in disasters and emergencies, including temporary roaming between carriers, a national public safety mobile broadband service, reserved spectrum for police and emergency services, and use of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satelliteservices.
Emergency roaming arrangements
6.28The Committee explored the idea of emergency roaming arrangements, where customers would have temporary access to other Mobile Network Operators’ (MNOs) networks in disasters and emergencies.
6.29Mr Bill Gallagher, Telstra Regulatory Affairs and Legal Services Executive, said roaming between networks in times of disaster was technically possible, and Telstra would ‘support the introduction of the three MNOs being able to roam onto each other's networks on a temporary basis in the event that onenetwork went down and another network was still surviving’. MrGallagher noted there would be an upfront cost to integrating different networks to provide shared roaming, and identified that carriers occupying separate infrastructure injects protective redundancy if one network is cut:
If the power goes out, then, usually, all networks go out. But there is still a circumstance where it's possible that one network goes out and others don't. Particularly with climate change and the increasing incidence of these sorts of natural disasters, we do think that it's something that industry needs to look at.
6.30Representatives of Telstra said the challenge was getting MNOs to agree to roaming ground rules, noting that boundaries around the types of communications, data volume limits and the circumstances when to employ roaming would have to be defined.
6.31Mr Gallagher of Telstra saw a role for government or emergency service agencies in declaring when an emergency situation would trigger roaming between the MNOs, but said it should be left to the three networks’ operation centres to coordinate the best access to their networks.He said that such emergency arrangements had begun overseas:
…last year the American carriers reached an MOU to do this. The Canadians reached it at the end of last year. The Japanese are just going through a process now. …all of the major jurisdictions are heading down this road.
6.32Despite the overseas prototypes cited by Mr Gallagher, Mr Andrew Sheridan of Optus said the company was investigating the use of roaming in emergency situations, but that there are technical and practical challenges:
Part of the reason is that there's no internationally recognised solution that is deployed for roaming around the world. So what we are looking at is a bespoke solution for Australia.
… In the case of emergency roaming, it's not as simple as flicking a switch.
6.33Mr Fletcher of the SA Metropolitan Fire Service said that allowing emergency roaming ‘would be very advantageous to the community’, while Mr Gatt of the PAV said that police agencies should also be able to roam across mobile networks.
6.34The Committee notes evidence to the inquiry was broadly consistentwith the preliminary findings of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in its Regional Mobile Infrastructure Inquiry that temporary roaming during natural disasters is ‘technically feasible’ but there are implementation issues to be worked through between government and industry.
6.35The Australian Government is developing a national public safety mobile broadband (PSMB) capability as well as a national messaging system, as outlined by MsHannah Wandel from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA):
Both rely on telecommunications networks, require close collaboration of mobile network operators and will benefit from enhanced network coverage and resilience.
6.36In relation to a PSMB capability, Ms Wandel said that an independent review was commissioned by the Government in early 2022. The Government subsequently released the review and its response in May 2023. As part of its response to the review, in the 2023-24 Budget, the Government announced funding of $10.1 million to establish a taskforce to progress a PSMB capability.
6.37Nokia said a national PSMB capability would ‘support day-to-day operations, incident response, planned events and disaster response and recovery operations.’ Representatives of Nokia explained the PSMB would share existing mobile networks, but it recommended there be a ‘dedicated core’ which would prioritise PSMB traffic for emergency services over public traffic. According to Nokia, the proof-of-concept trial ‘exhaustively tested the multi-operator service delivery model and successfully proved this approach could provide critical communications support needed for frontline staff during emergencies and natural disasters’.
6.38The NSW Government said PSMB capability could be hampered if carriers were co-located:
The inclusion of multiple commercial carrier networks in a PSMB capability introduces redundancy, allowing emergency services communications to continue on an alternative carrier network if one network is not operational or is inaccessible. However, these advantages may be lost if multiple carriers are co-located or sharing the same hosted site and it loses power (and any back-up power), or if it is damaged or destroyed.
6.39More broadly, the Centre for Disaster Management and Public Safety (CDMPS) described a ‘mission critical communications ecosystem’ comprising the Triple Zero call service, mobile radio networks, communications centres and dispatch systems, associated technologies and standards, and the people involved in emergency response. The CDMPS claimed the technology components of the ecosystem wouldcontinue to evolve in parallel with the global emergence of PSMB capability, and advocated for a financial model that balances commercial returns with public benefits associated with public safety communications.
6.40The PFA welcomed the identification by the CDMPS of the components of a ‘mission critical’ ecosystem and noted the particular importance of a PSMB capability.
6.41Nokia said the deployment of a PSMB network could be leveraged as part of Commonwealth and state and territory government programs to expand coverage in regional and remote areas, noting a Victorian Government recommendation that government funding should be tied to a requirement for commercial network providers to deploy PSMB capability.
Low Earth Orbit satellite communications
6.42The Committee heard that Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite services have the potential to improve communications in emergencies. Concerns were raised about reliability and the risk of emergency services agencies becoming reliant on these services. LEO satellites are discussed in further detail in Chapter 6 in the context of the communications needs of remote Australian communities.
6.43When asked about the potential for LEO satellites in disasters and emergencies, MrBillGallagher from Telstra said there was ‘no doubt … a LEO satellite would be a good thing’:
It is limited in its ability to serve densely populated areas, so it will work betterinregional areas than in populated areas, but it is definitely another option, particularly as the technology develops and as direct handset LEO gets better—and it will.
6.44Mr Leach from the WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services noted promising results from trials of satellite systems, including LEO satellites, during fires and floods:
In the pilots that we have done, they operated extremely well. This is through both flood and fire. I touched on WA police before. They are also trialling the Starlink satellite system. … as an example, I touched on the push-to-talk radio; that will go via a radio frequency. For a variety of reasons, that radio runs out of range … Starlink will automatically kick in.
6.45Mr Loughlin from the SA CFS welcomed the potential for LEO systems to help overcome terrain and distance challenges by putting some physical infrastructure ‘into a more secure environment’.
Reliability of satellite communications for emergency services agencies
6.46Mr Leach said Western Australian government agencies were mindful of therisk of becoming too dependent upon a privately-owned, overseas-based LEO system:
We are piloting Starlink but are acutely aware that if Starlink as a business proposition becomes nonviable it just shuts down overnight. We cannot, in a life-and-limb scenario—particularly in the response part of the domain—rely on that. … The more multiple carriers you have in that LEO space, the less risk there is for us.
6.47Representatives of WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services stressed the potential risks of emergency services becoming over-reliant upon a foreign‑owned satellite communications system, while First Nations Media Australia (FNMA), although noting technical challenges, recommended government agencies embrace LEO satellite technology.
6.48Mr Ben Pridemore, Technical Manager at First Nations Media Australia (FNMA) also raised concerns regarding the private ownership of Starlink, saying ‘Elon Musk can shut it down at any moment, which is part of the issue’. In September 2023, it was reported by CNN that Elon Musk ordered Starlink to be turned off to ‘hobble’ a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships, during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.
6.49However, Mr John Stanton of the Communications Alliance, representing satellite companies and MNOs, highlighted that there will be more than just one LEO system servicing Australia, and said that with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Australia could exert some control over how a LEO satellite network transmitted within Australian territory:
We're talking about quite a number of different LEO constellations, backed by global investors and partners. … and we haven't been alerted to any specific cyber risks, or risks of incursion into the signals that are transmitted.
6.50Mr Pridmore at FNMA, recommended government agencies embrace LEO satellite technology, but noted it was not perfect:
—the support around Starlink is really problematic. There's no-one to call here if we have an issue. The equipment dies regularly and you have to order new replacements at your own cost. …but the technology is improving dramatically.
6.51Dr Daniel Featherstone from RMIT University noted there was limited information available about how LEO satellite services fare during floods or bushfires but he’d heard good anecdotal reports:
But in just talking to some of the teachers who are using Starlink in Garrinjinny last week, we heard that, when the Cyclone Ilsa went down past the coast and all other services were out, they were still able to access Starlink and access their services.
6.52Mr Eamonn McCabe of the WA Department of Primary Industries andRegional Development said recent trials of the Starlink service had yielded ‘impressive’ results. Mr McCabe said it would be ‘possible for carriers to provide a 4G and 5G service from low earth orbiting satellites within a relatively short time frame’, but he noted ‘there are questions around capacity, affordability and device specifications’.
Consideration of future climate and disaster risk
6.53Ms Wandel of NEMA said new telecommunications infrastructure investment ‘needs to appropriately consider future climate and disaster risk, and NEMA has an important role to help reduce risk before a disaster event’:
[The Disaster Ready Fund] could include telecommunications infrastructure that increases adaptive capacity orpreparedness for natural hazards or reduces exposure to harm.
6.54Mr Loughlin from the SA CFS saw some risk from multi-carriers sharing one tower that goes out of service, but he expected sharing multiple towers would help alleviate loss of one tower:
…there is a risk that, if you put all your eggs into one basket and you lose that, you perhaps increase the problem, given that each carrier currently operates their own towers. If each carrier then was sharing those towers more widely, you might actually create more redundancy rather than less would be our hope.
6.55Mr Fletcher of the SA Metropolitan Fire Service believed good planning should mitigate the vulnerability of putting multi-carriers on one tower:
…potentially we could have overlapping networks. … Ifone tower was taken out, the redundancy that Mr Loughlin was talking about would come into fruition. So I think that, provided it's planned appropriately, the increase in real estate for the mobile carriers could provide those overlapping networks. Then if one is taken out another one cuts in, albeit at slightly less capability.
6.56Mr Loughlin said there was potential for battery technology to provide additional resilience but noted the risk of lithium-ion batteries causing fires, creating additional challenges for emergency services, saying, ‘I would caution that no technology would provide the silver bullet in that regard’.
Committee comment
6.57Access to reliable telecommunications services is critical to effective and timely law enforcement and for emergency services agencies to respond to natural disasters and life-threatening situations byaiding and assisting members of the public. Local communities also rely on access to telecommunications to receive advice and warnings about approaching or active dangers, and digital devices are increasingly used to co-ordinate and share vital information in real-time.
6.58Based on evidence to the inquiry, the Committee considers more must be done to ensure emergency services agencies retain access to critical communications systems and that telecommunications networks incorporate some form of built-in redundancy and that services are made more resilient and prepared ahead of times of disaster and emergency.
6.59The Committee notes the strong support from police and emergency services agencies for roaming capabilities across networks during times of declared emergency and disaster, and the support of the industry for such a measure if certain ground rules can be established and agreed upon. This was also recognised in the 2022-23 ACCC Regional Mobile Infrastructure inquiry’s preliminary findings. The Committees notes that comparable countries—Canada, Japan, and the United States—are investigating or implementing similar measures.
6.60The Committee urges the Australian Government to immediately establish a working group with state and territory governments, emergency services agencies and MNOs to develop protocols which would make emergency roaming a reality at the earliest opportunity.
6.61The Committee recommends the Australian Government establish a workinggroup involving stateand territory governments, emergency services agencies, and mobile network operators to develop protocols for temporary roaming arrangements in declared disasters and emergencies.
6.62The Committee welcomes the announcement of $10.1 million funding in the 2023–24 Budget to establish a multi-agency taskforce to progress a Public Safety Mobile Broadband capability.
6.63The Committee recognises the potential for LEO satellite services to provide reliablecommunications in disasters and emergencies, noting some emergency services agencies have piloted these services. Given the potential for new market entrants and further technological change in this area, the Committee encourages the Australian Government to monitor these developments and consider whether any policy or regulatory changes at the federal level could better support the use of these services by state and territory governments.
6.64The Committee notes the Government’s LEO Satellite Working Group is considering the role of satellites in supporting greater resilience and redundancy in emergency circumstances.
6.65The Committee expresses concerns over the exclusive use of a foreign privately‑owned satellite network to provide essential emergency and disaster telecommunications functions. Whilst the Committee notes the inquiry’s terms of reference specifically exclude investigating national security considerations, the Committee recognises these factors are critical in practice, especially when involving key law enforcement and emergency response authorities, and public safety. That said, there is a natural role for non-terrestrial infrastructure to be incorporated in anemergency response framework given ground infrastructure is so vulnerable todamage or complete destruction.
6.66The Committee urges the Government’s LEO satellite working group to considerthese issues in its deliberations, and to explore mechanisms to advance Australian‑owned or operated LEOs for coverage in problematic terrain, where there are peak tourist seasons and where terrestrial infrastructure has a premium build, repair and protect cost due to topography, climate,and remoteness.
Mr Brian Mitchell MP
Chair