The committee tasked with investigating the state of the telecommunications network in Australia has issued 11 recommendations, including sweeping updates to existing legislation.
The inquiry was sparked by a number of major outages across networks in recent years, including an outage of the Optus triple-zero network in September 2025 which was linked to two deaths.
A key recommendation is the nationalising of the triple-zero network, which would take the system off the hands of Telstra.
It would return part of the telco's operations to the government after Telstra was fully privatised by the Howard government in 2006.
Greens senator and committee chair Sarah Hanson-Young said it's high time the major telcos are held to basic standards to ensure they supply phone networks that work when needed.
"It's crazy that right now Australia's laws don't cover reliability of your mobile," she told reporters on Monday.
''If you're lucky enough to still have a landline at home, the laws are in place to say that the company providing your landline needs to keep that working.Â
"But when it comes to mobiles, that law doesn't exist, and there's no compensation for customers who fail to be able to use their phone on the fault of the company."
The Australian Telecommunications Alliance said the industry is already working to strengthen the system, highlighting recent efforts to educate customers and improve the reliability of triple-zero calls.
"Australian telcos have not been waiting for the Senate report on triple-zero outages to improve the reliability of networks and the integrity of triple zero," said alliance chief Luke Coleman.
Another central recommendation is to introduce a mandate for domestic roaming for calls and texts, which Senator Hanson-Young said is already available to US tourists visiting Australia.
"But Australians are blocked from it. It's not a service that is provided, and yet it can be," she said, noting the major providers have no incentive to offer it.
"There needs to be a review of the act to ensure that these things can be done properly and that there aren't just loopholes that allow the corporations to ... kick the problem down the road."
The report has welcomed the efforts of the department to trial text-based options for communicating with emergency services to improve accessibility.
Communications Minister Anika Wells said the telco sector needs to rebuild trust with Australians.
"They must do better to ensure networks do not succumb to preventable failures," she said in a statement.
"We will consider the committee's recommendations."
