Telstra downplays possibility of allowing customers to roam rival networks during outages

Telstra has told the Senate inquiry into the Optus outage that allowing customer roaming in the event of a nationwide outage is not a straightforward possibility. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Telstra has downplayed the possibility of allowing customers of one mobile operator to be able to use another mobile network in the event of a nationwide outage such as the Optus outage earlier this month, arguing it would require massive changes and investment.

In the aftermath of the 14-hour Optus network outage on 8 November, questions were raised as to why Optus customers could not roam on to Telstra’s or Vodafone’s network instead – with a similar system put in place in Canada following an identical outage from one telco last year.