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A Senate committee has recommended the Government amend telecommunications legislation to mandate domestic roaming in a report prepared as part of an inquiry into Triple Zero outages.
Domestic roaming is similar to international roaming, but within a single country. The idea is that if someone is in an area where they don’t have coverage within Australia, they would be able to roam onto the network of another provider that does. While this theoretically allows the user to make calls, send text messages, and access mobile data outside of their home network's coverage area, the Senate committee has only recommended domestic roaming be implemented for phone calls and text messages.
The Senate committee's recommendation follows renewed calls for domestic roaming to be re-appraised. In July, consumer advocacy group Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) started pushing for mandatory domestic roaming in a new policy position paper. This was followed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announcing a 12-month investigation into the mobile services market in August, with domestic roaming on the agenda.
The ACCC investigated mandatory domestic roaming in 2016 and ultimately decided against it, due to concerns it would reduce incentives for telcos to invest in their networks and not lead to lower prices.
Other recommendations from the Senate report include the implementation of a text-based service for contacting Triple Zero and the creation of a public register of Triple Zero-compliant mobile phones. The committee also recommended that the operation of Triple Zero should be nationalised, rather than be run by Telstra.
Alex Choros
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