New report shows pathway to telecommunications resilience in Australia

Australia is taking proactive steps to enhance the resilience of its telecommunications sector, according to a world-first report from The Australian National University (ANU).

Several recent high-profile outages, contrasted with the near seamless shift to remote work during the pandemic, have shown how telecommunications resilience significantly impacts all Australians with stakes that are higher than ever before.

Telecommunications underpins our lives from global commerce and emergency services to healthcare and national security and energy and transportation.

Despite its national importance, it has been difficult to assess the resilience of the whole telecommunications sector due to different approaches by individual enterprises and levels of government, and a lack of a shared understanding of what resilience involves.

To fill this gap, Australia’s Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts commissioned the ANU Tech Policy Design Centre (TPDC) to independently map the sector and better understand the risk landscape and whole-of-sector resilience.

The report, Australian Telecommunications Sector Resilience Profile, is a world-first, it:

• combines risk and resilience

• takes an all-hazards approach

• adopts a sector-wide perspective; and

• develops the Sector Resilience Maturity Model, a new analytical framework for assessing sector resilience at the national level.

TPDC assessed that the current maturity level of the Australian telecommunications sector is ‘developing’; level two on a five-point scale. This indicates that while basic resilience measures are in place, further action is needed to enhance coordination and resource allocation across the sector.

“Resilience is a hot topic but, as a methodology, it is comparatively new. It’s not surprising, therefore, that resilience in the Australian telecommunications sector is still developing,” Professor Johanna Weaver, Founding Director of the ANU TPDC, said.

“Our research shows that Australia is starting from a good foundation and, importantly, there is strong appetite from all stakeholders – in government, industry and civil society – to do better.

“I commend the government for commissioning this work. It’s only by understanding the current state that progress can be measured. This report is an invitation and a roadmap to enhance the resilience of the telecommunications sector on which all Australians depend every day.”

The report shows a shared vision for sector resilience. It provides a benchmark and essential evidence base for decision makers, industry, government, and the technical community.

The findings are a product of extensive consultations with more than 200 stakeholders from across the sector, representing all states, territories, and the federal government, plus representatives from industry, consumer groups and from dependent and interdependent sectors.

The report was refined, shaped, and endorsed by a 26-member Risk and Resilience Expert Panel consisting of diverse practitioners from the sector with backgrounds in engineering, network architecture, climate change research, government, enterprise, and strategic policy.

This report lays the groundwork for deepening collaborative efforts to enhance Australia’s ability to withstand and recover from inevitable disruptions. While the methodology was developed to profile the telecommunications sector, it is translatable to other critical sectors.

“The release of this report marks a significant step forward in enhancing the resilience of Australia’s telecommunications sector. It highlights not just the challenges, but also the tremendous opportunities we have to build a more robust and reliable network for all Australians,” Professor Weaver said.