The short version
- The Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers legislation commenced on 1 November 2025.
- Telcos must now test Triple Zero during upgrades and maintenance and meet tighter outage-notification rules.
- For VoIP users, the practical risks are an out-of-date emergency service address, no power during an outage, and misconfigured dial plans.
- Every business with a cloud phone system should check its 000 setup at least once a year and whenever it moves or restructures.
Why Triple Zero is in the spotlight
Australians have long assumed any phone can call 000. A run of failures tested that assumption. The November 2023 Optus outage left millions unable to reach emergency services, another Optus Triple Zero outage occurred on 18 September 2025, and the ACMA has since examined individual cases where customers on other networks couldn't get through. Each of these events fed into the reforms below.
What the new rules do
The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers) Bill 2025 passed Parliament in late October 2025 and commenced on 1 November 2025. Alongside updated ACMA determinations and industry codes, it:
- created a Triple Zero Custodian to oversee the whole emergency call ecosystem, with power to request information from providers through the ACMA;
- gave the ACMA power to issue Emergency Call Service directions requiring industry action (the Custodian made its first such request in November 2025);
- required telcos to test Triple Zero during upgrades and maintenance, the failure mode behind several outages;
- added requirements for emergency calls to fall back to other networks and for mandatory improvement plans after outages.
The ACMA also registered an updated Emergency Call Service Requirements Industry Code and a new Emergency Calling – Network and Mobile Phone Testing Industry Code in late 2025. In May 2026 the Custodian opened a broader review of Triple Zero legislation, including how the framework should handle the move from circuit-switched to all-IP networks.
What this means for VoIP and cloud phone users
Most of those obligations sit with carriers and providers. They don't fix the problems that most often break 000 on a business VoIP system, because those problems are usually configuration, not network.
1. The emergency address is wrong
On a mobile, emergency services can use the handset's location. On a fixed VoIP service, the address passed to emergency services is generally the registered service address on the account, not where the phone physically is. If a desk phone or softphone is used at another site, or by a staff member at home, the address emergency services see may be wrong.
2. No power, no phone
VoIP handsets, PoE switches, routers and NBN equipment all need power. In a blackout, a VoIP system without battery backup goes silent, and with it the ability to call 000 from the desk.
3. Dial plan mistakes
Systems that need a prefix to get an outside line ("dial 0 first") can turn an emergency call into "0000" or block it. A good system recognises 000 and 112 regardless of prefixes and routes them first.
4. Not every VoIP service supports 000
Official guidance says you can call Triple Zero from certain VoIP services, not all of them. App-only and over-the-top calling services may not offer emergency calling. Providers that can't provide access are required to tell you clearly, so read the service terms.
A one-page Triple Zero check for your business
- Confirm with your provider that every number and user on your system can call 000 and 112.
- Check the registered emergency address for each number and site is correct. Update it whenever you move.
- For staff working from home or across sites, decide how emergency calls should be made (usually: use your mobile) and write it down.
- Make sure dialling 000 works with and without any outside-line prefix.
- Put the NBN connection box, router, and the switch that powers your phones on a UPS sized for at least an hour.
- Keep at least one mobile phone charged and available on site.
- Ask your provider how they test Triple Zero routing, and how you'll be told about outages.
- Don't place test calls to 000. Ask your provider how they verify emergency routing instead.
Use a mobile. Mobiles can generally reach 000 through any available network, even with no credit. 106 is the text-based Triple Zero service for people who are deaf or have a hearing or speech impairment.