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The ill-planned shutdown of Australia’s 3G network not only happened with little notice, but has caused a technological nightmare for consumers. James Parker reports.
AUSTRALIA IS CURRENTLY in the midst of the most significant change to the telecommunications landscape it has ever experienced in modern history — the shutdown of the 3G Mobile network.
Originally announced by Telstra in late 2019, the shutdown is supposed to usher in a new age of modern high-speed communications to power the modern 4G and 5G data-dependent world we find ourselves in, and are increasingly reliant on.
As they did with the shutdown of 2G in 2018, the telcos and industry have framed this as a necessary step forward in advancing their 4G and 5G coverage.
However, the handling of the shutdown has been met with disruption and delays, mismanagement, industry self-interest and an overall lack of preparedness by the Government, regulators and the sector at large.
Whilst shutting down 3G sounds like a perfectly reasonable proposition, the realities of achieving that in the modern landscape of fractured technological standards and cost-cutting means this process has been fraught with problems.
All of which have been entirely foreseeable.
Background
The shutdown of Telstra’s 3G network was originally due on 30 June 2024, with Optus to follow from September 2024.
Vodafone (TPG Telecom) was the first out of the gate with a planned switch-off from 15 December 2023.
TPG would later realise it got out scot-free from the controversies to come.
Many have had a part to play in this, including TPG/Vodafone.
On Sunday 17 March 2024, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland stated she became aware that approximately 740,000 4G phones (that supportVoice over Long-Term Evolution, or VoLTE/4G calling) would not be able to call 000/emergency services after the 3G switch off.
Following on from that March announcement, on 6 May, Telstra announced that it would delay its shutdown to 31 August.
Then subject to a Senate Inquiry in July, Telstra and Optus eventually jointly delayed their shutdown until 28 October 2024.
The entire time, the industry and telcos have touted the shutdown as a critically necessary step in ensuring we can interact with the modern digital world.
Meanwhile, telcos like Telstra continue to post massive profits whilst simultaneously increasing the cost of mobile services for customers, with ever-diminishing value in return.
The problem
A key factor that the industry has been keen to not draw too much attention to for over a year is the number of 4G and 5G devices that would no longer work, or would only work on some networks, including for emergency calls.
The idea that a 4G or 5G phone could somehow be affected by the shutting down of older technologies like 2G and 3G is a completely foreign concept to people, and rightfully so.
The last 20-30 years of 2G and 3G have enabled seamless global connectivity and greatly enhanced competition and innovation in the mobile sector. Surely 4G and 5G would be an extension of the same? How could it not be?
This is where it all starts to fall apart.
Unlike 2G and 3G, 4G and 5G are data-only standards and have no built-in calling functionality, let alone one as well standardised as the traditional “circuit-switched” calling from 2G and 3G.
This becomes a problem as to enable calling on 4G and 5G, devices need to have explicit software support, especially so for emergency calls.
Calling on 4G is enabled through the use of VoLTE.
The 28 October 2024 shutdown
Starting on Monday 28 October, Telstra and Optus began their shutdown process.
What many customers were not aware of is that, later the same day, they would be entirely disconnected and blocked from all mobile services on their 4G or 5G devices, even on brand-new ones.
Whether unable to contact employers or family members, many Australians were caught off guard.
Scale of the issue
One would assume that the shutdown of the 3G network would only impact those with phones from the last decade, or those unwilling to upgrade.
However, the Government and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) were fully aware that people with newer 4G devices would be impacted in sizeable numbers.
The ACMA and Government had been monitoring the shutdown and based on numbers from the industry, expected approximately 258,000 4G mobile phones would be impacted once the shutdown began.
However, the 258,000 number is actually an estimate based on an earlier October figure.
On 1 October 2024, the total number of affected phones was noted as 516,875 including 3G, 4G and 5G.
More troubling is those numbers include thousands of 4G and 5G devices that actually work perfectly on 4G, including for emergency calling, lumped in with “incompatible” devices because the telcos have next to no visibility regarding which individual devices can make emergency calls over 4G.
Last-minute messaging to Telstra customers
For months in advance of the switch-off, the messaging from the providers indicated that older and incompatible devices may lose access to calling as the network was shut down, but at minimum, data and SMS would remain on 4G and 5G devices.
This was true with Telstra up until 25 October.
However, from midday on Friday 25 October, Telstra customers were instead told via SMS that their 4G/5G device would be artificially blocked from all services, including data and SMS.
Telstra customers were given half a business day’s notice that their 4G or 5G device would be entirely blocked from all services from the following Monday.
Why this happened: The amendment to the ‘Emergency Call Service Determination’
On 21 August, Communications Minister Rowland issued the ACMA with a direction to amend the “emergency calling rules” requiring the carriers to cease providing service to any phones the carriers have determined cannot call emergency services on 4G.
On paper, this may sound like a reasonable idea. But as with most things, the devil is in the detail. Especially anything involving technology.
Such an arguably appropriate and moral decision was made completely devoid of any understanding of how technology actually works, combined with the conflicts of interest in letting the carriers be the sole arbiters of what is allowed and what isn’t.
It was obvious from the outset that this would go wrong.
The ‘public consultation’
On 24 September, the ACMA released a draft of the changes to the ‘Emergency Call Service Determination’, along with an open consultation process.
However, this consultation was only due to run for two weeks until 8 October 2024.
Most consultations by the ACMA run anywhere from four to five weeks depending on the topic and stakeholders involved.
Given the seriousness of totally blocking hundreds of thousands of phones in a matter of weeks, it would be reasonable to expect the ACMA to ensure a sufficiently long public consultation period. Or at minimum, the Minister would have intervened and delayed the shutdown.
Even more questionable is why it was only opened on 24 September, when the ACMA had the direction from the Minister weeks earlier in late August/early September.
Members of the public made submissions to the ACMA with very serious concerns regarding the Minister’s direction and the draft put forward by the ACMA.
Even the Telcos raised some serious concerns about the technical feasibility of blocking devices, including concerns about having to block the phones used by tourists.
On Thursday 24 October, the finalised Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Amendment Determination 2024 was published on the legilsation.gov.au website.
From that point it became official, the Government was going to force the telcos to block over a quarter of a million people and their devices in the span of mere days and weeks.
The concerns of consumers and industry were entirely disregarded.
The somewhat more reasonable suggestion by Telstra to just disable call service and leave data and SMS was rejected by the ACMA.
If the telco believes a device to be “incompatible”, it would be blocked from all services. No exemptions, no dispute processes, no proof required — simply denied all services.
What many people also don’t understand is that these compatibility issues with VoLTE calling and emergency calling are primarily software problems, not hardware issues.
Two identical phones running different software versions can have different VoLTE calling and emergency calling functionality on various networks.
This industry has tried to pretend that all 4G devices that rely on 3G for 000 are purely “hardwired” this way and the only solution is to buy new devices, when that could not be further from the truth.
The 8 November Optus outage
The failure by Optus last year during the 8 November outage is the key factor behind this change and the new determination direction and rules.
Blocking handsets entirely sweeps the compatibility problem under the rug.
By making this change, the industry and regulators are entirely absolved of any responsibility or accountability for failing to properly address the issues with calling and emergency calling over 4G.
We need a policy that actually requires the industry to fix the problem.
In 2019, Optus even said to the ACCC that ‘VoLTE cannot be the sole technology relied upon to provide voice services… due to incompatible handsets’.
In the Government’s subsequent review of the Optus outage, it was also noted that there is minimal if any testing between devices across networks.
The ACMA, department and industry have decided not to properly address the compatibility issues and will instead now require people to only use “supported” handsets purchased directly from their telcos or associated handset partners.
With this policy change, consumers can now no longer use any device they want from any provider in the world, even if it may work perfectly.
The telcos get to solely decide what phones you are allowed to use and where you must have purchased them from.
Optus blocking officially supported devices
Due to the failures by Optus during the 8 November 2023 outage, in early September, the company began instigating a very regressive device-blocking policy.
In essence, if Optus (or its partners) didn’t sell a phone or test it, it would be blocked, even if it’s a supported hardware model.
Optus is even blocking officially supported phones that are on its device support list.
If the phone was not purchased from Optus but another telco, it’s blocked, even if it’s also a supported model with that other telco.
Phones are being denied all services based on the Type Allocation Code (TAC) section of the device serial number (International Mobile Equipment Identity, IMEI) and not the actual real-world functionality.
Even identical otherwise perfectly compatible models are blocked if purchased from another telco or retailer.
Even some brand-new phones recently purchased in major retail stores here have been blocked by Optus and the telcos, those customers are currently without any 4G service.
Impacts on consumers
A key element that has been neglected by the Government, regulators and industry from the beginning is the impact on consumers.
They may like to proudly display and talk about how there are processes and systems in place to deal with the vulnerable and elderly, patting themselves on the back whilst simultaneously failing to actually ensure that consumers are correctly informed and protected during this process.
Media coverage and public awareness
Over the past year, the providers have consistently neglected to properly inform their customers that 4G and 5G devices would be impacted. Even the media has been largely kept in the dark about the scale and extent of the issue.
Everyone has wrongly assumed shutting down 3G would just be like the 2G shutdown in 2018.
Until February this year, the Government also largely assumed the same, assured by the telcos and their government relations lobbyists everything would be fine.
Only after Vodafone shut down its network in January did complaints about lost call service on 4G/5G phones start coming in, though the Minister had been warned about that happening as early as June 2023.
To date, the providers and industry have been keen to cherry-pick examples from around the world of countries that have switched off 3G, whilst ignoring that many of the same countries have maintained 2G to provide access to emergency calling and critical infrastructure devices.
In stark contrast, France will have 3G until approximately 2028/2029 and the UK will be keeping its 2G network around until approximately 2030/2033.
Both countries have more than two and a half times the population of Australia.
European operators have delayed the shutdown so the compatibility and safety issues with 4G calling can be resolved.
Now Australia has become an example to the world of how not to manage a shutdown.
The harm to consumers, competition and serious accessibility issues with contacting emergency services have set the stage for danger to public safety and the public at large.
One Telecom policy expert has called what’s happening here in Australia ‘a stunning mess’.
For the foreseeable future, Australian consumers will now be subject to less competition and high prices for handsets whilst the telcos get to block perfectly compatible phones, leaving consumers with no recourse.
Even with all of this, “compatible phones” with software issues will continue to be able to connect to the network but be unable to call 000.
Many tourists arriving from overseas now find their phones totally blocked from all services, unable to call or text anybody.
James Parker has a diverse background in I.T. and networking, a jack of all trades in the tech world.
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