Temporary Disaster Roaming ready for high-risk weather season

As Australia officially enters its higher-risk weather season (October to April), the country’s three mobile network operators have confirmed that they are ready to activate Temporary Disaster Roaming (TDR) in order to help keep regional and remote Australians safe, informed and connected should natural disasters cause mobile network outages.

TDR has been designed for specific disaster scenarios and may be activated in designated areas where another mobile network is available and has sufficient capacity to safely support additional customers. To ensure the capability was ready ahead of the high-risk weather season, mobile network operators developed the technical solution, completed rigorous testing and regional field trials, and agreed on operational protocols for activating and deactivating TDR during eligible disasters.

The priority is to help communities stay connected to essential communications and information without putting the network services that people rely on at risk during an emergency.

“Temporary Disaster Roaming has been developed by telcos to provide another way for regional and remote Australians to stay connected during natural disasters,” said Luke Coleman, CEO of the Australian Telecommunications Alliance (ATA).

“If your usual mobile network is impacted by a natural disaster, TDR will enable you to make calls, send texts and use basic data via another mobile network where there’s one available. There is no additional cost to use it, and for most customers, connection will occur automatically once TDR has been activated and is available.”

Activation of TDR will be managed directly between mobile network operators through their network operations centres, which are operational 24/7. Where one operator identifies that its network has been disrupted by a natural disaster, it can contact the operator of the surviving network to assess whether that network has the coverage and capacity to accommodate additional customers without putting existing services — including access to Triple Zero — at risk. Network conditions will continue to be monitored while TDR is active, and the service may be adjusted or deactivated if conditions change.

TDR will work alongside existing ‘camp-on’ arrangements for Triple Zero calling. Camp-on enables emergency calls to connect via an alternative mobile network when a customer’s usual network is unavailable, and this is available regardless of whether TDR has been activated.

“Australians have always been able to use any available mobile network to call Triple Zero, even when their usual network is impacted by an outage or out of coverage,” Coleman said. “TDR takes this even further.”

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