The question to me is why the private sector is involved at all. Surely emergency services should be public services.
10 Likes
Which organisations are involved in establishing NG000?
The NG000 strategy is a partnership between the federal government, Telstra as the ECP, emergency service organisations, telecommunication carriers and public safety vendors.
Who or what is a “Public Safety Vendor” ??? The article & the idea made a lot of sense: even Telstra being contracted as the ECP (Emergency Call Person) as it has the widest coverage in Australia; also the ESO’s & telcos - BUT…
is this where the politicians sell off data to their cronies? As in the ‘My Health Record’ template??
7 Likes
If something is working, (especially a critical public service), why break it?
One step removed from the first question asked on a triple O call is who your private health ensurer is?
7 Likes
here is some background info: Triple Zero: Emergency Call Service Set for Regulatory Refresh, to fill in the missing bits from the ‘whipping up of interest presentation promo’.
4 Likes
Nothing about ‘Public safety Vendors’ in this…
2 Likes
Hasn’t the NBN broken it? Always keep a fully charged mobile for emergencies - and if you have mobile coverage it makes it even better for you 
7 Likes
Just speculatin’ but perhaps this is a reference to:
computer-aided dispatch (CAD) vendors
The point is that with AML, you call 000 and your mobile phone then automatically sends a supplementary text message (of some type, or an internet-based alternative to a text message) that contains your location (latitude and longitude) … but that is much more useful if
- the location message can be married up to the corresponding 000 call (if one is available), and
- the location information is reliably and usefully available to the ‘first responder’ (for example, location information must not be verbally conveyed or rekeyed due to the possibility of introducing errors, and ideally the vehicle’s navigation system can automatically get the location, plan a route, and instruct the driver)
So before this is let loose on Australia’s carriers and on Australia’s mobile phones, the work needs to be done at the back office, as it were.
May 2020 sounds optimistic to me - there are a lot of moving parts - unless they have already been working on this behind the scenes for a while.
This is not rocket science. It is already in use in some other countries. However it should be obvious to everyone that it is very important that it is done right - and makes things more safe, not less safe.
6 Likes
In respect of still needing the NBN. We are keeping our home copper line and likely ADSL2 service. Of course that is routed back through the system at the old exchange and into the future, who knows? Perhaps it too will leap across to the NBN at that point.
It still leaves sitting on the tin roof to use the mobile, although that might not be so wise if the storm like last time brought down the house power line onto the garage!
Hopefully It will be enlightening and not alarming as it it unfolds.
3 Likes
Absolutely. Using a term like “public safety vendor” tells me that from now on public safety is a commodity on the market and I find this impossible, and intolerable.
4 Likes
… perhaps the solution is here?
https://beacons.amsa.gov.au/purchasing/choosing-a-beacon.asp
4 Likes
I’ve had a SPOT GPS emergency locator for over 10 years, fortunately never had to use it for an emergency, but it is handy for alerting my wife to my location with the ‘HELP come and get me’ button that I need to be collected after a long bike ride when there is no phone signal 
5 Likes
“The question to me is why the private sector is involved at all. Surely emergency services should be public services?”
TOTALLY agree. Where the offering could be described as a commercial service, then it could be argued to be run by the private sector. However, this has NOT worked out well in the case of our airports, where the (then) minister responsible now says that this is not a competitive environment. Really? What was he smoking at the time? Selling off government owned monopolies has NEVER worked in the long term, because the new owners naturally want to make a PROFIT. Simples!
4 Likes
In the case of 000 it is more complex than the airport example, although in principle I agree they should be owned and operated by the public, eg government.
An airport is a self contained business or service. 000 relies on a communications system that unfortunately itself relies on private enterprise since the privatisation of Telstra. Since the (unfit for services as some see it) NBN has always been on the table to be sold, it represents a rock and hard place how to deliver 000 services. Note that even Airservices Australia is a government owned company at arms length, with an annual report. The telling line is ‘Airservices does not receive any government funding’.
If government created its own emergency services RSP it would have to negotiate T&C with NBN like Telstra or any of the others. The profit motive will be evident no matter how under this business plan.
The ballot boxes have long supported privatisation through who we elect, and the differences between our major parties is not so much whether, it is with how much zeal and speed with which they sell off and privatise public assets and services and what if any payback the public receives. Historically it was kicked off in earnest by the Hawke-Keating government if that makes any point.
Who does what to whom is embedded in ideological dogma and how governments respond to vested and special interest groups. Historically ‘the money’ prevails sometimes aided and abetted by ministerial incompetence (or excellence) as seen by different observers. Recently the neoliberals who work with the premise that any dollar in the proper pocket is a good dollar have dominated and been re-elected.
5 Likes
The actual change here relies on the mobile phone too. So unless someone is suggesting nationalising Apple and Google (and …), the private sector is involved. Not that Telstra ever owned the other two mobile networks either.
It is a bit doubtful that the functionality that I was talking about will work in current generation NBN equipment at all i.e. mobile only for the foreseeable future.
3 Likes
As far as I know, neither Apple nor Google operates a mobile 'phone network in Australia. As for nationalising mobile infrastructure, that’s part of what we need to do to repair the harm done by privatisation.
They do however write the software that runs in about 99% of all mobile phones in Australia.
None of this has anything to do with privatisation or NBN Co.
It has a great deal to do with the privatisation of our telecommunications infrastructure under John Howard.
This topic is about “Next Generation Triple Zero”.
The first major initiative [of Next Generation Triple Zero] is Advanced Mobile Location (AML).
This is by definition mobile only.
There must be better targeted topics for anti-privatisation railing or political debates.
There is nothing inherently political in “Next Generation Triple Zero”. AML is just a technical change, and if done right will be an improvement.
Privatisation gets in the way.
When you look at all the moving parts in AML, it doesn’t make sense to focus on the fact that a thousand years ago one part (the part that has the contract to operate the 000 service) was privatised.
It wouldn’t be a hijack for you to advocate that the government end the contract to operate the 000 service and operate the service itself … but why?
