{"id":100852,"date":"2025-10-24T05:59:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T05:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/100852\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T05:59:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T05:59:08","slug":"more-bad-news-if-you-own-this-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/100852\/","title":{"rendered":"More bad news if you own this phone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain has ruled out government assistance to Australians whose mobile phone may be unable to call triple-0.<\/p>\n

Telstra testing on Thursday revealed 71 Samsung devices were unable to reach triple-0 on the Vodafone network when Telstra or Optus networks were unavailable.<\/p>\n

The national telco provider said 11 older Samsung Galaxy-model phones were affected by the issue, meaning users would need to replace their phone with a newer model.<\/p>\n

About 60 models required a system update.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Ms McBain said there would not be any government assistance for customers who may need to purchase a new phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an issue for the telcos,\u201d Ms McBain told ABC Radio National Breakfast host Sally Sara.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe telcos have contracts with customers and those customers pay for a service which includes a triple-0 service for their handsets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an issue that the telcos are going to have to address.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FED<\/p>\n

Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain has ruled out government assistance to Australians whose mobile phone may be unable to call triple-0. Picture: NewsWire \/ Martin Ollman<\/p>\n

Ms McBain said the telecommunications companies were working to assess how many devices were impacted, but the number was estimated to be about 10,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important that the telcos identify them and work with their customers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to give anyone a false sense of security around their ability to call triple-0, so we\u2019re ensuring that the telcos do work with those customers to ensure that they have access to triple-0.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms McBain confirmed the issue was due to the phones\u2019 software, and \u201csometimes that is a 3G issue, sometimes it is not\u201d, referring to the shuttered mobile network.<\/p>\n

She said the federal government had been working with telecommunications companies to strengthen emergency responses following recent triple-0 outages.<\/p>\n

The deaths of four people have been linked to a 10-hour Optus outage last month that impacted customers in South Australia, Western Australia and in NSW.<\/p>\n

71 devices impacted by issue<\/p>\n

Telstra said it had also notified Samsung of the issue.<\/p>\n

In a statement, TPG Telecom, which owns Vodafone, said it had identified a cohort of older Samsung handsets leading into the 3G network shutdown in 2024 that were unable to make triple-0 calls on the TPG\/Vodafone mobile network and could not be fixed with a software upgrade.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese devices were blocked from the Vodafone network as part of the 3G shutdown process,\u201d a spokesman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRecently, we became aware that some of those same handsets that worked on other networks were unable to connect to triple-0 when only Vodafone coverage was available.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese Samsung devices were found to be configured in way that permanently locked them to making triple-0 calls on the Vodafone 3G network even if being used with the<\/p>\n

SIM of another mobile operator and able to make triple-0 calls on their 4G network. This limitation was not previously known to TPG Telecom.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesman said customers on affected devices would be contacted directly with \u201cspecific instructions\u201d about whether they need to update the software on their device or replace it.<\/p>\n

\u201cCustomers who do not update or replace incompatible devices will be unable to make emergency calls and, in line with our regulatory obligations, their devices will be blocked,\u201d the spokesman said.<\/p>\n

\"PEOPLE<\/p>\n

Telstra testing revealed 71 Samsung devices were unable to reach triple-0 on the Vodafone network when Telstra or Optus networks were unavailable. Picture: NewsWire \/ Christian Gilles<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that some customers may need extra support, and we are committed to helping them through this process \u2013 including offering $0 and subsidised handsets where needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mobile devices affected by the issue are Galaxy A7 (2017), Galaxy A5 2017, Galaxy J1 2016j, Galaxy J3 2016, Galaxy J5 (2017), Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 Edge+, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge.<\/p>\n

An Optus spokesman earlier said during emergencies, and at times mobile phones could not connect to its regular network, phones were designed to search for another available network to reach triple-0.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese situations relate to rare occasions when both the Optus and Telstra networks are unavailable and the phone needs to switch to Vodafone in order to contact emergency services,\u201d a spokesman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis only happens under very specific conditions, but it\u2019s critically important that all devices can reach triple-0.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Australian Communications and Media Authority said it had been notified of the issue with Samsung devices and was gathering information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain has ruled out government assistance to Australians whose mobile phone may be unable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[62566,62563,61,60,202,43791,24840,2277,62565,573,80,62564,25899],"class_list":{"0":"post-100852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-3g","9":"tag-government-assistance","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-mobile","13":"tag-mobile-devices","14":"tag-mobile-phone","15":"tag-network","16":"tag-optus","17":"tag-samsung","18":"tag-technology","19":"tag-telstra","20":"tag-vodafone"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}