Free mobiles coming for 'vulnerable' to contact 111 during power cuts

Tuesday, 17 November 2020

Home phones that get their power over the copper landline network have long been on the way out, prompting angst about how people can stay safe during a power cut.

Phone companies will need to start dishing out free mobile phones to vulnerable customers who don’t have them from August, or else ensure they are offered some other means to call 111 in a power cut.

The new rule has come about because home phones connected to ultrafast and wireless broadband networks, and all cordless phones, require either mains or back-up battery power to make calls.

Old-style, corded copper-line phones receive the small amount of power they need to operate over the copper-line network from phone exchanges that have back-up power, so don’t have the same constraint.

However, such phones are now increasingly rare.

Phone companies will need to start providing information to customers on their emergency options from February.

* Fibre optic outages spark vulnerability concerns

Network company Chorus could start removing copper phone lines from streets where ultrafast broadband is available from March next year, under a separate Commerce Commission proposal that is due to be finalised next month.

Under the new code finalised by the commission on Tuesday, phone companies will need to provide information to all customers from February on the options they have to call 111 during a power cut and put in place a process to identify vulnerable customers.

From August, the commission will require them to ensure those customers are offered an appropriate alternative means of calling 111 that will work for at least eight hours in a power outage.

Geoff Thorn, the chief executive of the Telecommunication Forum, an industry body, said that in most situations the best and cheapest option for phone companies would be to provide a free basic mobile phone to vulnerable customers who didn’t already have a mobile.

Mobile phones do not need to have credit on them to call 111.

But in some cases it might be more appropriate for them to provide battery back-ups for customers’ broadband connection and home phone, he said.

“It is up to the retailer to work with the consumer to find the best solution for them.”

Phone companies will need to contact vulnerable customers once a year to check whatever solution they agree on is still “appropriate and functional” and replace the back-up device or its battery every three years.

In most cases that would probably mean couriering vulnerable customers a new mobile phone every three years, he said.

Thorn agreed there was a risk that if the elderly or infirm didn’t already have a mobile phone and were given one as emergency back-up they might not keep it charged or in a place where they could find it in an emergency.

But if they were prepared to go out of their way to register with their service provider as vulnerable, they were probably going to “put the effort in to ensure they have got what they need when they need it”, he said.

Many vulnerable people did have mobile phones, so it was not clear how many would need the support, he said.

A major civil emergency such as a big earthquake might leave lots of people without power for longer than eight hours, but traditional landline networks might also not work in that situation, Thorn said.

“When you get to that point everybody becomes vulnerable in one way or another.

“But what we do know from experience is that mobile networks are faster to stand up. So if you have got people with mobile phones, that is going to be more effective for them, I would have thought.”