TPG receives warning following Triple Zero compliance failure

TPG Telecom has been issued with a formal warning by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), after the telco failed to notify Telstra — the entity responsible for the Triple Zero emergency call service — in a timely manner that an outage had affected emergency calls from its network.

An ACMA investigation found the TPG network was down for 80 minutes between 12.40 am and 2 am on 15 August 2024, leaving most of its 4G mobile customers unable to make voice calls — including emergency service calls. The majority of calls made to Triple Zero during the outage were able to ‘camp on’ to other networks.

Under emergency call service rules, as soon as a telco carrier becomes aware of a disruption to emergency service calls it must contact Telstra as soon as practicable. The investigation found that while TPG became aware of the issue at 1.22 am, it did not report the problem to Telstra until 9.07 am.

The ACMA investigation found no evidence that TPG customers suffered any harm as a result of its non-compliance. Nevertheless, ACMA member Samantha Yorke said the authority has been cracking down on breaches of emergency call rules.

“It’s crucial that all telcos have their systems and processes in place to ensure any network outages impacting Triple Zero are identified and addressed as soon as possible,” Yorke said.

“They must also take timely action to alert other key stakeholders in the Triple Zero ecosystem where a problem is being experienced.”

TPG advised that the cause of the breach was human error and that all relevant personnel have now been trained on its processes in relation to emergency call management. Refresher training will take place annually.

The safeguarding of emergency call services is one of the ACMA’s compliance priorities for 2024–25 and will continue to be one for 2025–26.

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