Two Blokes Talking OPTUS – A Special live from Optus Stadium, Perth

Episode: Two Blokes Talking OPTUS – A Special live from Optus Stadium, Perth

Podcast: Two Blokes Talking Tech

Date: 2026-08-09

Hosts: Trevor Long & Stephen Fenech

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[00:00:00] Trevor Long: This is the biggest crowd we've ever had. Wow, look at everybody. It's actually, well, we were just talking about the 38th live show.

[00:00:08] Stephen Fenech: That was our biggest audience.

[00:00:09] Trevor Long: We invited all of Perth and no one came. Yeah, we flew all this way and no one came.

[00:00:14] Stephen Fenech: We're in a different time zone.

[00:00:15] Trevor Long: You okay? Are you jet lagged?

[00:00:16] Stephen Fenech: I'm fine, I'm still Sydney time, mate. I stay in Sydney time.

[00:00:19] Trevor Long: My laptop stayed in Sydney time.

[00:00:20] Stephen Fenech: So does mine.

[00:00:21] Trevor Long: Freaked me out last night.

[00:00:22] Stephen Fenech: When I travel even overseas, my laptop's Sydney time.

[00:00:24] Trevor Long: Yeah, I do it all the time.

[00:00:25] Stephen Fenech: It's a great way to know what time your radio, next radio segment is.

[00:00:28] Trevor Long: The reason I do it is, yeah, A, radio, but B, when you're writing articles and they've got an embargo ago time, you wanna make sure, you know, oh my God.

[00:00:33] Voice Over: Yes.

[00:00:34] Trevor Long: But last night I was thinking, I was at the hotel and I had to get up for the Today Show and I had some stuff to do. And I looked at my clock and went, oh my God, it's 11:23. In Sydney? No, no, well, on my laptop. And I thought, oh dude, what time is it here? And then I realized it was actually only 9:23 in Australia.

[00:00:51] Stephen Fenech: Takeaway too, mate, that's how it works.

[00:00:52] Trevor Long: Anyway, but yeah, thanks for bringing no one here.

[00:00:54] Stephen Fenech: Well, we didn't really put it out, I went to my entire Perth network.

[00:01:00] Trevor Long: All of them turned up. I've burnt a lot of bridges here in the late '90s.

[00:01:05] Stephen Fenech: Westside lives in Western Australia, but up in Perth. He's not here. He's not in Perth. He's up.

[00:01:09] Trevor Long: He could have flown down.

[00:01:10] Stephen Fenech: He's up top, mate.

[00:01:11] Voice Over: Yeah.

[00:01:11] Trevor Long: Anyway, we are in Perth. We'll get to why straight after this. Welcome to Two Blokes Talking Tech. Not a bad price. With Trevor Long from eftm.com.

[00:01:22] Stephen Fenech: Really handy device.

[00:01:23] Trevor Long: And Steven Fenech from techguide.com.au.

[00:01:27] Stephen Fenech: Two Blokes Talking Optus here.

[00:01:29] Trevor Long: Sunday morning episode because you know what, we don't believe you should rest.

[00:01:33] Stephen Fenech: Value, value.

[00:01:33] Trevor Long: We don't believe there should be a day of rest any day.

[00:01:36] Stephen Fenech: That's right.

[00:01:37] Trevor Long: You've got the two blokes every single day of the week and that's how it should be.

[00:01:41] Stephen Fenech: That's a busy feed.

[00:01:42] Trevor Long: We are here in Perth as guests of Optus. We flew over this week. We've got a lot to talk about on the show. We are attending a football game, football. Football.

[00:01:53] Stephen Fenech: Football.

[00:01:53] Voice Over: Soccer.

[00:01:53] Trevor Long: There's an Italian soccer festival going on over here.

[00:01:56] Stephen Fenech: By the time you watch this, we will have watched Juventus, Inter, who Trevor never knew what, who those teams were before this week.

[00:02:03] Trevor Long: That's untrue. Here's my football knowledge, having worked, and you would absolutely, we've talked about this before. When you work in a newsroom, if you don't, in radio specifically, if you in the 6:00 AM bulletin on a Monday, Tuesday, and you don't give the Premier League football results, the phone, the sports phone at the radio station will ring and you will then give the results next time around.

[00:02:24] Stephen Fenech: Former sports editor, you don't do the soccer properly. You get phone calls.

[00:02:28] Trevor Long: So the reason we're here is because it is Optus Stadium. You probably can't see the logo in the background, but it's a magnificent stadium in Perth with 60,000 capacity and state of the art. State of the art in many ways. We got a great little tour earlier. We got to see— I got shivers because we went into the press boxes. It reminded me of the old days.

[00:02:45] Stephen Fenech: Flashbacks of the continuous call team.

[00:02:47] Paul Milford: Exactly.

[00:02:48] Trevor Long: Yeah, we've seen the event management center. Oh, like a data room, which was one of like 30 data rooms in the building. Incredible. But we're going to talk on the show We're going to talk to one of their network executives, Paul Milford, who has joined Optus and is leading the transformation and the move forward into AI and a whole bunch of things, including 6G. We're going to talk about how they, how they actually deliver mobile coverage to 60,000 people successfully and how they plan to increase it.

[00:03:17] Stephen Fenech: Like a pie. It's like a pie. I know we're at the right place to enjoy a pie.

[00:03:21] Trevor Long: You're getting hungry thinking about it. But see, it's interesting because Optus Stadium obviously hosts a lot of AFL games, but then they've got a major event like this, this football tournament. You have things like down at Wonaroo, which is a big racetrack south of Perth. They had the V8 Supercars just recently. And I think what we've learned over the years, and this has been an eye-opener, is when you run a telco, you don't just, you know, make sure it's all switched on and working every day. You have to actually think about where people are going to be. Yeah, you've got to go, hang on a minute, on Tuesday night they're all going to be over there, or on Sunday morning they're all going to be over there. And we need to make sure that there's capacity in that area area. So the planning and strategy that goes into a mobile network isn't just about where we live. It's also about where we go and how densely we populate certain areas.

[00:04:07] Stephen Fenech: Being here at Optus Stadium, full house, there's a lot of people who are on their phones, they were sharing, calling.

[00:04:13] Trevor Long: We've got some really cool data we're going to share about one of the games earlier in the week.

[00:04:17] Stephen Fenech: But the beauty of the setup here, like Optus has done a lot of great work here and they can, they've got the network slicing and everything happening here. They can cater for everyone, not only in the stand, but if there's a concert here, they can, you can even get coverage on the field, which is down sitting on there for a concert.

[00:04:33] Trevor Long: Just for any— how many players would need it during any of the Fremantle Dockers or West Coast Eagles play? Don't take your phone on the pitch because that, that those antennas are turned off.

[00:04:41] Stephen Fenech: Turned off.

[00:04:42] Trevor Long: Unless it's a concert.

[00:04:43] Stephen Fenech: That's right. No, because people will be sitting down there. That's right. Yeah, that's where I'd be sitting. I'd be up here. You'd be up here in the nosebleeds. I'd be in the premium seats.

[00:04:51] Trevor Long: We took you up a few levels and it was like, Steven, this is how normal people, how these people go to sporting events. Yeah.

[00:04:57] Stephen Fenech: Not even a suite.

[00:04:59] Trevor Long: I was a little bit out of my comfort zone as well, if I'm honest.

[00:05:01] Stephen Fenech: All right.

[00:05:02] Trevor Long: But it's a mega stadium, really impressive stuff. And we'll unpack a little bit more about how Optus is, well, some of the results we've seen from the data. And when we get to that a little later in the show, be mindful that the data we're gonna run through is what they analyze every single time they have an event here because they learn so much.

[00:05:21] Stephen Fenech: And analyze in real time too. So they're continually, okay, this is happening over here, we're gonna do this.

[00:05:25] Trevor Long: But also the stats we'll share with you are completely different to what it would've been 10 years ago, 5 years ago because of social platforms changing and our behaviors changing. So that's why as a network you'd have to, you have to understand what people are doing before you just flagrantly think that the network's just going to perform well when there's 50,000 people in one place.

[00:05:45] Stephen Fenech: Of course.

Paul Milford — Optus network transformation, stadium connectivity and 6G

[00:05:45] Trevor Long: Two Blokes Talking Tech, Two Blokes Talking Optus. And after this, we'll be joined by Paul Milford, a senior engineer, senior executive here at Optus. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech. Alright, we're back here at Optus Stadium. We are now joined by a man I've known for a long time, Stephen. We've known Paul Milford for a very long time.

[00:06:08] Stephen Fenech: Welcome. Welcome, mate.

[00:06:09] Paul Milford: Thank you, gentlemen.

[00:06:09] Trevor Long: What is your new title here at Optus?

[00:06:12] Paul Milford: I'm an Executive General Manager. I'm leading up networks transformation and AI ops.

[00:06:18] Trevor Long: You've joined Optus from another large telco in Australia, and I think that's a fascinating move because you talk about transformation, right? It's not about anything Optus needs. It's about every telco needs to go through transformation, not just on a generational sense. And we'll probably talk about 6G in a minute, but yeah, on a continual basis, a network has to evolve.

[00:06:38] Paul Milford: Correct. And it's, it's a daunting challenge we have all the time when you look at it. And I joined because of that challenge and I joined also because I think the industry needs a strong second competitor. And it's very interesting when you learn a lot of stuff with my experience and others and a stint internationally, how I apply that and do these learnings on implementing the changes that we need to do.

[00:07:05] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:07:06] Stephen Fenech: Speaking of learnings, I'm sure looking behind us, we're obviously here at a big venue and when there's a lot of people in here, connectivity is important.

[00:07:15] Paul Milford: Yep.

[00:07:15] Stephen Fenech: So, and people come, they're not only passionate about their sports, but also passionate about connecting and sharing So having an optimised network, no easy task, is it, in a stadium of this size?

[00:07:27] Paul Milford: No, no. In fact, if you think about the capacity of here, it's about 60,000. That's like the, I think, 76 city of Bunbury. So you think about it in WA, they all turn up, they come about, spend about 2 hours getting here. They have a great experience and then they leave. And that puts a lot of demand when they're also in such close proximity because they sit quite close together. And they're all chatting away and in effect the trend is now they all turn into mini broadcasters.

[00:07:55] Trevor Long: And that's what you see when we'll talk later in the show about some of the stats we've seen from the big football matches in this last little while. But we just did a tour of the stadium with you and some of the team from, from the Optus Stadium. And it's remarkable to me how many antennas there are here. Like, I don't know, the average idiot might think that we just put a tower up or two or an extra tower, but there are There are antennas everywhere.

[00:08:19] Paul Milford: If only. So if you think of this like a pie, you know, a multi, multi-story pie, there's 28 slices here. 28. And you probably say, why not 20 or why not 34? But we've looked at the location and the design of the stadium and we've carved up those like pie slices to get the best experience for the cellular coverage in for those areas.

[00:08:45] Trevor Long: And so it doesn't, we were talking upstairs, I think what's fascinating is you think again, so many people just turn up the power, make it loud, make the frequency work so that everyone's getting 5 bars of signal, but actually it's a much more nuanced process to give the right connectivity to that many people.

[00:09:04] Paul Milford: Correct, and if I take a little bit of time and for our listeners, if you think about radio signals, let's think about them like torch beams. So every one of those 28 pieces are like a torch beam. And in it, we try to get that torch just to cover that area where we want. We don't want it splaying across everywhere else because that's torch beam and call them different colors, what we want those people sitting there to communicate with your phones back to the antennas there. And we want them to do it quietly. Right. So quietly, what I mean Our challenge here is with all, you know, all the radio signals, a thing called noise. So you think, well, what do you mean? Well, if you're in a crowded room like we're talking here, fairly quiet, it's okay, I don't have to shout. But the more and more people that come in the room, as it gets busier and busier and everything else, we have to start talking louder and we have to almost get to a point we have to shout at each other to hear. That is what I think— call it the noise floor. That's the same thing with radio signals. So what we try to do is divide that cake, divide those slices up, and then we try to get the people or the handsets, the mobile phones, to talk quietly to that antenna because it can serve more people, it can get a better efficiency, and then everyone has an enjoyable experience.

[00:10:29] Stephen Fenech: So more efficient zones rather than a larger inefficient zone.

[00:10:33] Paul Milford: One antenna here couldn't do it. And everything you have, you don't have unlimited resources everywhere. They call it systems theory where every point you have, there's a congestion point. It's like building roads, you know, a freeway, and then they'll build a freeway, it's really good, but the on-ramps are no good, or it's really good and then you come to the on-ramp to take off and it queues up, it queues up, whatever. So you think, you have to think of things end-to-end in a systems type theory.

[00:10:59] Stephen Fenech: Consideration here too, I guess, not just for the for the people watching the game, but also too for vendors and if there's an activation outside. So they've got to also get a part of the network as well.

[00:11:11] Paul Milford: That's right. And it's interesting because in this environment, this is a small city like we just walked around. And for the listeners, it is like a mini city. There's lots of various control points. What blows your mind, really. And it's like this city fires up and there's different needs and different users. It's not just the people coming in, it's the people serving them, the people that are organizing them, maintaining they're safe and secure, and also outside. So when you're queuing and what happens. So we have the coverage inside and then we optimize the coverage outside because people have got to come in, they stay here, and then they leave.

[00:11:49] Trevor Long: And the other part of building something for a mini city and a temporary city for ours is also that it's got to go somewhere. So again, going back to the roads analogy, it's all well and good to have good connectivity for 60,000 people, but if they're all doing something at one time, and the stats that we will talk about later on the show show some really interesting peaks and troughs, but if all that data hits its own roadblock, you know, its own problem along the way, so you've got a— I think you've got fibre built into this place as well, so that not only are the antennas at a high number, the performance for the individuals is high, but that traffic is going to be efficient all the way back to wherever it needs to go.

[00:12:26] Paul Milford: To go back to the rest of the network. Yep. High capacity links. We have high capacity links for our cellular network. There's high capacity links that we provide for the administration here.

[00:12:36] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:12:37] Paul Milford: And we also look at resiliency and redundancy in the provision of those links so they don't all go through the same conduit or the same area. They're at different locations entering the building.

[00:12:47] Trevor Long: Something that is a little off the Optus Stadium topic, but it's news for Optus, is 6G.

[00:12:54] Paul Milford: Yeah.

[00:12:54] Trevor Long: Now I've got to tell you, Paul, we've spent a lot of time over the last decade talking about 5G, the evolution, another G, and testing it. There's a lot been done to get to 5G. I'll be honest, I'm still not convinced I know why I needed 5G, but I think the challenge is that we as individuals think about ourselves, not the broader concept of connectivity. So if you could make a pitch for why we need 6G, or what do you see the power of 6G being, what would it be right now?

[00:13:23] Paul Milford: Well, if you just— let's just talk about the Gs. Just give me the benefit of just describing what a G is. Yeah, because some of you are using— what the hell are you talking about? You know, the very first analog system we had was called analog, and we call it 1G. In fact, there's a system before it, but I won't get my technical geek head in. I'll just talk about analog. It's called AMPS, Analog Mobile Phone Service. When it first came in, I remember when I was working in another environment, we thought that won't take off. You know, what is it? And we couldn't build it fast enough. What do people like is being talked, but it had a problem in that we couldn't scale it fast enough and it wasn't very secure. Because if you had a ham radio, you could hear some conversations.

[00:14:08] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I think so. A couple of politicians might have wished they weren't on that network.

[00:14:12] Paul Milford: Exactly. So early on they got together and it was sort of a standard, but they got together and formed the globe because the world was shrinking even back then. In those days, people are moving around. You couldn't take a phone overseas like you do now. And so they formed a thing called, well, a Third Generation Partnership Project. So it was a standard body. International propeller heads, thousands of PhDs that work out what do we need to do, what does society need in the next 10 years to do this wireless stuff. So 2G came in when we digitized the voice from the, from the base station to the handset. So you couldn't tune in like those politicians do.

[00:14:52] Trevor Long: That was the fundamental leap of 2G. Yeah.

[00:14:55] Paul Milford: And a SIM card.

[00:14:56] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:14:56] Paul Milford: So when the SIM card has security, so it had security in it. And it was more about capacity. And we had some issues with that disruption of— Some of your listeners might know when you had a fuel pump or you had a speaker to go da-da-dah dah-duh duh!

[00:15:11] Stephen Fenech: That's digital call coming in?

[00:15:14] Paul Milford: Yeah, yeah.

[00:15:14] Trevor Long: You can actually hear a call before it rings exactly because they're signaling right now today will never understand not like Speaker 1 but modem handshake though.

[00:15:22] Paul Milford: With that noise they won't even dial us on 2G could hear so yes, that's an evolution. So that's new thing New for them too. generation. So what's the difference? It's like the mobile phone could talk a new language, a new digitized language, and that was the start of it. So 2G went along, and people talk about disruption and why you need it, right? I remember very early on, I was the first time I was talking to Steve, I was testing SMS, and I'm going, why and who the hell would want to use this?

[00:15:50] Stephen Fenech: I've got a pager, what do I do this for?

[00:15:52] Paul Milford: Yeah, because listeners, if your listeners didn't know, in those days you had pagers and you could slip off and you could get, so, yeah, Steve Fenech answering service here. Can I take a message please? And you could get a message, an alphanumeric pager, right? You had numeric numbers only, alphanumeric. So we think, why would you possibly need to do SMS?

[00:16:11] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:16:12] Paul Milford: The rest is history.

[00:16:13] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:16:14] Paul Milford: 2G was there. The next generation, 3G, right? So what happens is that—

[00:16:20] Trevor Long: that's the jump for data, isn't it?

[00:16:21] Paul Milford: Yeah, the jump for data.

[00:16:22] Stephen Fenech: That was internet in your hand, sort of thing.

[00:16:24] Paul Milford: Internet to the phone.

[00:16:25] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:16:25] Paul Milford: And that was more about downlink, right? And of course 2G didn't really have very, very slow data. It sort of evolved.

[00:16:32] Trevor Long: There was data in 2G.

[00:16:33] Paul Milford: GPRS, remember? Very slow, very clunky. So those boffins, those standard guys, we're okay, 3G, we need to push the internet to the phone. And that's when it started. And you had wireless broadband. It was slow at first, like 7 meg, and then it got to 14 meg. And then we got to 21 meg and then we could put 2 carriers together, peak speed 42, and then it was stuck. It was sort of stuck there. And uplink, well, we didn't think about uplink. Uplink was very slow.

[00:17:02] Trevor Long: Why would you need to send something from your phone? Correct. Out to the world? Correct.

[00:17:08] Paul Milford: So the next jump, 4G, bigger, better pipes down, but uplink.

[00:17:15] Voice Over: Yeah.

[00:17:15] Paul Milford: And uplink was pushing and uplink was again a real big disruptor. Right. So outside broadcast units, people starting journalists. You use it now? Yeah, you, you now have, you know, SIMs, multiple SIMs, multiple networks, television over 4G. Over 4G. So there was, there was, so that was 4G. We come to 5G, right? A lot of hype with 5G, as we know, Trev. And we're all looking for the killer use case, and 5G was downlink, uplink, and a new thing called latency, which is this the time the packet goes from one point to another, just time from a point, from point A to point B.

[00:17:52] Trevor Long: And in a world where we are more than ever, you know, annoyed about how long it takes a web page to load, let alone an order to dial, the thinking time that people have, the patience of human beings today is lower. Latency was critical.

[00:18:06] Paul Milford: Yep. Latency was. So that was a new dimension. We're in it now. Yep. We've had such a rush to get to 5G there was a version where we were talking on 5G, but we're also talking to 4G at the same time. So imagine if the listeners can imagine a layer cake and you're on one technology and you're talking on it. In the past, if you're, if you're on 4G and went out of coverage, you drop down to the next layer, a different technology, 3G. You talked another language, right? So the first version of 5G, you actually were talking the same language, but you had access to a 5G pipe. You're talking to two at the same time. Next evolution was you're just talking on 5G, which is a standalone, standalone, and that's where we are now. So this has been a long answer to your question about 6G, but I hope the listeners understand it's been a journey and they're looking forward. It's an evolution, look forward, what do we need in 6G? Now we know now we have IoT, Internet of Things, lots of things connected So again, it's a scale thing, right?

[00:19:08] Voice Over: Yeah.

[00:19:08] Paul Milford: Scale down, speed down, speed up. But there's other things now that talk about sensing, the network being a sensor, the network providing information, information on your whereabouts within a cell. Like for people, don't be worried about, you know, Big Brother's looking at me all the time. It's about locating where you are to tailor awareness. Awareness.

[00:19:32] Trevor Long: Awareness. The ability to send emergency alerts based on a specific location.

[00:19:36] Paul Milford: Location.

[00:19:37] Trevor Long: Yeah, critical.

[00:19:37] Paul Milford: So, so we always respect everyone's privacy in the network as we go through. But so sensing is one. The other aspect is we have to then look at, I suppose, the scalability and the interactions. And they're even— when I talk about sensing, I'm talking about specialist type capabilities in that torch beam, knowing where you are within that torch beam. And there's interesting use cases and it's come up now with war, with even domestic stuff like drones. Like imagine knowing where a drone's coming or if a drone's come through you, the base stations can turn into like mini radars. Yeah, there's a lot. It's still being developed.

[00:20:16] Stephen Fenech: Is AI a part of this too? AI playing a part?

[00:20:18] Paul Milford: Fundamentally, of course. And, and if you just give me another couple of minutes, the complexity of the network and it's a good segue maybe of what we're learning here is Traditionally, when we talk about a service, it's voice, it's data, it's SMS. We talk about stuff. Now we're talking about differentiated services. So what's that mean? It means against the different users, you get a different level of service. It could be— we're gonna— I hate the word guarantee, but provide you a different downlink or uplink or latency sort of capability. And that's what we're talking about when we talk about network slicing.

[00:20:55] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:20:55] Paul Milford: And I'll talk a bit about that in a bit. But in the 6G, we all know that we've got, you know, watches, devices, multitude of things.

[00:21:04] Trevor Long: It's funny, the three of us are all wearing analog watches. But anyway, I think you looked at our watches and went, none of us have watches.

[00:21:09] Paul Milford: I didn't. Yeah. How about that? So techo daso tech. But the thing you'll have differentiated services for wearables, for glasses. You got the Woolies thing at the moment, controversial. Who knows what comes out with ChatGPT and AI and cameras and whatever.

[00:21:24] Trevor Long: So the industry, the body needs to be— it's looking at the future and trying to essentially in some ways predict and understand the future, understand maybe where 5G falls short of some of its current applications and work together. Because let's be honest, it's exciting that you've announced this, but this is not a tomorrow thing.

[00:21:44] Paul Milford: This is years down the track.

[00:21:46] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:21:47] Paul Milford: So our announcement. So if you took— listen, listeners, I took you through what a G is and what I understand. Let's talk about the torch beams or what do they mean or what's the frequency. So for those of you— and we're going to sound like old guys— remember your old car radios? You used to tune and tune into a radio station like Triple M or whatever. It's 104.7. The frequencies are where do you transmit along this dial, right?

[00:22:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:22:14] Paul Milford: And what happens, because you've got the old technologies, they're still radiating. If you do something new like a new G, you need a foundational frequency, the first one to test and understand. So emerging through the standards, 6 GHz. I know that's a number, but that's just like a number on your dial. That seems to be one of the good candidates for one of the frequencies that 6G will be on.

[00:22:38] Trevor Long: Right.

[00:22:38] Paul Milford: So what we did is in our Optus campus, put an antenna up, cranked it up to 6G. We've got a robotic dog going through and we're testing the propagation.

[00:22:49] Stephen Fenech: I'm going to go, I'm going to go and link up on that, that one, mate, for sure.

[00:22:54] Paul Milford: He goes around and we're testing the propagation. The Macquarie campus is huge, like the university campus.

[00:23:00] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:23:00] Paul Milford: So you see it. What is it like when it's in the air? But then the propagation techniques inside the building and understand.

[00:23:07] Trevor Long: So, and also you can obviously compare that to the existing technologies and how it propagates.

[00:23:12] Paul Milford: It's not transmitting 6G, the new language of 6G, but it's transmitting on that frequency. So we know early on and understand the designing because what we do, just like here, we spend an enormous amount of effort with our engineering, very talented engineering staff learning about the network adapting to it and continually optimising the network all the time.

[00:23:35] Trevor Long: Stephen mentioned AI. So is that part of how you, like if you compare just where you are today with 6G versus where you were at the very, very same time with 5G, obviously AI wasn't even a consideration with that. So you'd need to be thinking about what AI is going to do in the future. But can you also utilise AI in analysing your frequencies and stuff like that?

[00:23:54] Paul Milford: We're using it now. Smarter. Automation and AI, we've announced a couple of world firsts with, you know, this year we've done 3 with Optus. We've worked with partners like we have partners Nokia, we have partners Ericsson. We're using AI, is actually used in the way those radio signals are now, algorithms, you know, bit of buzzword bingo with AI, but those advanced processing techniques are coming more and more in the existing networks.

[00:24:20] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:24:20] Paul Milford: So even though they're defining 6G, AI will take more and more of a role in there to help. I'd blow your mind and probably bore you if I told you about all the signals, all the processing, all the data. I can see you're nearly going to sleep now, Trent.

[00:24:36] Trevor Long: Hey, you know what, it's a big tour.

[00:24:39] Paul Milford: That's intense. Yeah. So it'll get better and better, but we'll need more and more. And back to the differentiated services, they'll be dynamic changing all the time because I mentioned downlink, uplink. Maybe latency, maybe a thing called QoS, which is like the quality of the signal service.

[00:24:54] Trevor Long: But think about that. So that's a really important thing. We've talked about quality of service for years, like with just with home routers. And the example we used to give was, you know, you've got a kid with a gaming PC, you want the bandwidth for the console, they get priority on your home network because your TV doesn't need priority, it just needs signal. And so you're saying that 6G might, might contain some level of QoS that allows you as a provider to do certain things with—

[00:25:18] Paul Milford: Enhancements for this differentiated services. When you normally put it up, you could stitch it up across a network and it's there. So put users in it. I'm talking about dynamic. Dynamic because the other dimension is time of day, location.

[00:25:34] Trevor Long: That's the fourth dimension?

[00:25:35] Paul Milford: So as you go through with it, imagine the networks creating these differentiated services all the time.

[00:25:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:25:42] Paul Milford: And Pat, when you ask me what am I doing here in Optus with my experience in network transformation, AIOps, we're focusing on the future. We're looking towards what it needs. And in our— we've got quite a significant network transformation program.

[00:25:57] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:25:58] Paul Milford: I'm looking at designing the operations mode for the future to do that very thing.

[00:26:03] Stephen Fenech: Just getting back to Optus Stadium here, on game day, Do you— you're looking in real time throughout the time. And we also want to get into the network slicing. Is that part of that? Every day, that side of the game day.

[00:26:18] Paul Milford: Talented engineers in Optus, which we're helping. We look pre, during, and post, like analysis of what happens during a game environment. Obviously, this is a pretty special place for us because it's called Optus Stadium. Yeah, of course.

[00:26:31] Trevor Long: It's a unique testbed. It's a— you've got some some solid infrastructure here.

[00:26:34] Paul Milford: Pretty good. If you're an Optus customer, you get a great experience here. Let's just say that. Just put a little plug in there. But the key thing here is we learn a lot and we learn about that congested nature. And you mentioned before earlier on in this mini city that comes on, there's different merchants and different activities. We've been doing a real life use case of the FPOS, So we all know if you can't buy your hot dog, you can't buy your Coke or your Pepsi or whatever it is that you go through it. That's a challenge, right? And you've been there and the resiliency or the testing or providing that service for a unique one, which is mission critical for the person.

[00:27:17] Trevor Long: There'd be hundreds of payment terminals in this stadium. And when there's the whole city of Bunbury, 60,000 people here, there's a lot of transactions happening. And so this concept of network slicing in just in this trial situation, I've seen some trials already with network slicing at the V8 Supercars. Yep. With Optus, you know, they actually slice out a piece of the network so that the V8 Supercar team can ensure that they absolutely get reliable and consistent coverage no matter what the fans are doing. So the idea of using network slicing is to say, here's a piece of our network and I don't probably need to know, is it how nerdy it is? Use it as a frequency or what it is, but you're taking a piece of the network and you're allowing a bunch of devices based on their SIM card essentially to say, we're, we're on that piece.

[00:27:59] Paul Milford: Yep.

[00:27:59] Trevor Long: We want that priority. Yeah, you get priority not because they're special, but because they actually need to be resilient, more resilient. And like, if my Instagram post takes 10 seconds to upload instead of 5, Trevor's blown up then. So be it.

[00:28:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:28:13] Trevor Long: If there's 5,000 people buying hot chips and each of their transactions takes 4 seconds instead of 1, that tap, wait, and approved, will you be testing that? Will you be looking at literal delays and time?

[00:28:28] Paul Milford: So we've set up and we looked at disruptive technology, right? So we've got an app and we've got everyone, if I tell the listeners, what are we talking about? If you've been to the markets and you go think of Square, like they're disruptors and the apps, They're disruptors and they're going away from your traditional bank eftpos terminals. So let's, this scenario that you're, you know, Steve's got a hot dog truck. He comes here, activations, goes through there. And he, but he does here, he does other markets and other areas and some of them are pretty busy. So he's got this merchant, like a Square-type equivalent. He has that app and he uses it. And on the slice, he knows he'll pay a little bit extra that he knows wherever he is, his transactions go through and it's good, one's to work. And the key point you said is also about latency. Like if it gets through, we talked about 5G and it can be processed. There's always how does it process end to end, but that congested part, if it gets through there a lot faster, the overall experience will be a lot better.

[00:29:25] Trevor Long: What's the point of doing the trial though? What's the bigger picture? What is the—

[00:29:29] Paul Milford: Learnings.

[00:29:30] Trevor Long: Where does it get rolled out? Does it get rolled out like so that nationally you're, Are you talking about Point of Sale? Or is it because you can then utilize it as a—

[00:29:38] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, can you improve other parts of your network?

[00:29:40] Trevor Long: Option for people that might be a premium subscription. I don't know, like how does—

[00:29:43] Paul Milford: Everything's about when we do the trials and validation, how would you use it? We could talk to the people, go through it. There's an ecosystem here where we talk about, it's not an Optus merchant app, but it's an app of that to showcase and demonstrate and learn, have we got the parameters of that slice right? How, you know, in this environment, prove it. We take that learning then, just like you did the V8 supercars. There's many methods to carve up those parts where we're looking at ways we optimize, plus also showing the people who make devices, right? We talk about the app. What about the EFTPOS terminal? What about the Square thing? How do we do this a bit different? How do we also— do we as a product provide a wireless broadband router there for people to do these sort of things. There's a range of different use cases that we can apply. It could be the primary source or it could be a backup source for resiliency to other ways.

[00:30:38] Trevor Long: Why did you not come to Optus and get the title Chief Nerd? Because that's a few other— you have to be the nerdiest nerd, don't you?

[00:30:45] Paul Milford: No, I've met bigger nerds that make me look really—

[00:30:49] Trevor Long: oh, there's a lot of— refer to the standards, Bobby. Bodied his propeller heads earlier. So that'll get back, right?

[00:30:57] Paul Milford: Yeah, yeah. I'm nothing compared to some of these boys.

[00:30:59] Stephen Fenech: I'm still getting over how Bunbury comes to the footy every week. That's amazing.

[00:31:02] Trevor Long: Yeah, I'm worried about the Kwinana Freeway in that instance. Just finally, I'm curious just to reflect on this decision to come to Optus and what you've seen in the time you've been here. And you mentioned having strong competition in the mobile space.

[00:31:16] Paul Milford: The industry is.

[00:31:18] Trevor Long: Is this, how long's the road for you? What's success look like for you in your career at Optus?

[00:31:26] Paul Milford: To me personally, I came 'cause a friend of mine came across the CTO3 and said that we need help, but we're here. I'm impressed with the people of Optus.

[00:31:37] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:31:37] Paul Milford: Like the people here, whatever. I'm super impressed with the CEO. I'm not saying that 'cause he's the boss.

[00:31:42] Trevor Long: We're big fans.

[00:31:43] Paul Milford: Like Stephen is. If you said, how would I describe him?

[00:31:47] Trevor Long: Apart from being a Storm fan.

[00:31:49] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, yeah, we'll forgive you that.

[00:31:51] Trevor Long: He wouldn't be very happy right now though, wouldn't he?

[00:31:53] Paul Milford: Storm fan. And I've told him I've never forgiven what he did to North Sydney. So anyway, I'm a North Sydney Bears fan. Very topical today, guys. Very topical. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:32:02] Trevor Long: Ballin' New Jersey today, Paul.

[00:32:03] Paul Milford: Look out. But if you had to describe Steven, there's one word: authentic.

[00:32:09] Trevor Long: Wow.

[00:32:11] Paul Milford: As a leader, as his commitment, he, like the culture starts from the top.

[00:32:15] Voice Over: Yep.

[00:32:16] Paul Milford: And we're all here to turn around or make it better. I don't wanna speak of the past.

[00:32:21] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:32:21] Paul Milford: There's a lot of work to do. We've, because we've been here, there's lots, there are good people inside Optus, but we need to augment it. So we've got more talented people coming and going through. Huge, huge lot of work we've gotta do in our core network and our transmission and IP network in our, Operation and Support Systems, OSS, across IT and everything else. But what we're doing is the people are here, we're all on one focus, one goal. It's to take it and we see where the future is. A lot of us look to the future. I'm in operations, so we have to, the way we monitor, the way we get the data of the network. I've created some new, what I call models, which even when you have the big the Big Four consulting come to you or the other industry ones in there. So I'm leveraging my experience to focus for the future. Always got cost in mind. Like it's, everyone wants to platinum everything else.

[00:33:17] Trevor Long: You're gonna have to write a blank check, but you know.

[00:33:19] Paul Milford: You don't have blank check.

[00:33:20] Stephen Fenech: No.

[00:33:20] Paul Milford: So everything is a cost, total cost of ownership the way we're looking at it. Judicious in the way that we choose the technology and solutions. But most importantly, I've just born, I always ask why. You know, query past urban myths, query technology. We're pushing our vendors very hard in a nice way. Our model is having strategic partnerships, but we're challenging thinking and we're setting us up for the future. And we'll incrementally get better and better. The change has started and we're sort of leading the way in this transformation. It will be, it'll just get better. Point, you know, months, 12 months, you know, it's a long job. Within, you'll see a difference, hopefully straight away with what we do some things, but it'll evolve. And there's a massive program that we need to do, but significant changes. And it's sort of like a 3-year program where we get to it. But along the way it'll get better and more resilient as we took more and more changes.

[00:34:22] Trevor Long: And 10,000 phone calls were made the other night here. I'm sure many more will be made over the night.

[00:34:26] Stephen Fenech: Ahead, mate. That's just Optus customers too.

[00:34:28] Paul Milford: They're only Optus.

[00:34:29] Trevor Long: Fascinating world you live in. You are the nerdiest nerd I know, but that's okay. That's a compliment.

[00:34:36] Stephen Fenech: Thank you very much. That is a massive compliment.

[00:34:37] Trevor Long: I think it's funny how many people— I've often been called a nerd and someone once said, are you okay with that? I'm like, that's fine, whatever.

[00:34:42] Stephen Fenech: It's a badge of honour.

[00:34:43] Paul Milford: How does it work?

[00:34:44] Stephen Fenech: You know, that's what I think.

[00:34:45] Trevor Long: Mate, congratulations. And we look forward to following the transformation.

[00:34:50] Paul Milford: Thank you. Thank you both.

[00:34:52] Trevor Long: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech. With Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech. Two blokes talking Optus and we are at Optus Stadium. Look, one of the things, and we alluded to this at the start of the show, is data, stats. I love a good stat. And one of the first things I said to Optus when they said, you want to come to Perth?

[00:35:10] Paul Milford: Yeah.

[00:35:11] Trevor Long: Do you want to talk about, you know, how we use Optus Stadium or what happens there? I said, I need data. I want to see stats.

[00:35:17] Stephen Fenech: Show me the numbers.

[00:35:18] Trevor Long: So they pulled the details, they pulled the numbers from Wednesday night's first Italian football game between AC Milan and Inter Milan. Sports guy. There we go.

[00:35:30] Stephen Fenech: And there were more than 52,000 people sitting right here. Yeah.

[00:35:34] Trevor Long: Here's one of the cool things. When you're a network, you can understand, you know, the home network of someone. So if people roam and they were able to understand that international visitation was up 133% compared to an AFL match, which obviously makes sense, right? It's an international festival.

[00:35:50] Paul Milford: People would have traveled to see this game.

[00:35:52] Trevor Long: And what they can't do is they can't talk about where they came from state-based, but they can talk about international. The top markets were Hong Kong, the UK, makes sense, right? Football nation who loves Australia. Also Perth's an easier flight than the East Coast of Australia.

[00:36:07] Stephen Fenech: Yes, it is.

[00:36:07] Trevor Long: China and even India. Wow. I didn't know that was India.

[00:36:12] Stephen Fenech: India's closer to Perth than it is to Sydney. Correct.

[00:36:14] Trevor Long: I was thinking about that with like an AirAsia flight left the airport wheel driving out. It is actually like a great location for a lot of those kind of Asian, Asian countries.

[00:36:24] Stephen Fenech: What about the amount of data? This is almost up to your level of data usage. 2.4 terabytes of mobile data. Yeah, that's a lot of photos and videos. That's a lot of uploading.

[00:36:35] Trevor Long: They calculated that if you want to understand what 2.4 terabytes is, that's about 625,000 photos being shared. Now, obviously that's just a measure of that. A lot of it would have been video. A lot of it would have been potentially streaming. But it's a huge amount. It'd be like streaming half a million songs. I love equating data into a tangible thing.

[00:36:56] Stephen Fenech: Unbelievable. But you know what was interesting too, that the data traffic that went up and down throughout the game, because at different points of the match there was different, like obviously halftime, people were back on their devices. But during the game when certain players came on the field, the amount of traffic increased at those points of the game as well. When someone famous—

[00:37:16] Trevor Long: There was a legit—

[00:37:17] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:37:17] Trevor Long: You know, think of a graph, right? You have increases. Yeah. But there was a legit spike when AC Milan made an interchange like near the end of the game. A spike again when there's a penalty shot. Also the obvious spike, and I think anyone could have prepared for this, was halftime. It's like halftime quickly, you know, you might share your stuff, check stuff, but you're also sharing things.

[00:37:36] Voice Over: Yeah.

[00:37:36] Stephen Fenech: You know, true fans would be sharing it. They'd be watching every second of the game.

[00:37:39] Trevor Long: This is where I find— this is what I find fascinating. You say true fans throughout the game.

[00:37:44] Paul Milford: Yes.

[00:37:44] Trevor Long: Around 15% of the crowd remained actively engaged on social media, posting and sharing content. So if you like, what does that say?

[00:37:51] Stephen Fenech: Does that mean you're really engaged? Let me put it in how I like whenever Souths play, I'm getting calls, texts, some— I'm texting 8 different people during the Souths game.

[00:38:00] Trevor Long: You're pestering them is what I'm hearing.

[00:38:01] Stephen Fenech: No, they're pestering me. But I could imagine—

[00:38:04] Trevor Long: He's got the coach's number. People are— Send him on.

[00:38:06] Stephen Fenech: They're communicating throughout this game and they're not only sharing this out, look where I am, but also, oh yeah, that was amazing. And all that's all happening at the same time as well.

[00:38:16] Trevor Long: I just found that a fascinating thing because we think of engagement in an event as being all eyes on, but on your phone. And Paul, who we just met, has been using this term when we were doing the tour. He talks about mini broadcasters.

[00:38:28] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:38:29] Trevor Long: And see, that's an evolution. And that's what someone like Paul and his team need to understand is that it used to be that you just go, we need to make sure everyone can send an MMS or an SMS and then we We moved to— remember when Twitter was at its peak kind of thing and it was like, you want to make sure everyone can send out their tweets?

[00:38:44] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:38:44] Trevor Long: Well, now it's not just sending an Instagram photo or even sharing a story. It's they want to go live.

[00:38:49] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:38:50] Trevor Long: To their friends or their followers on like Snapchat or Instagram. They want to actually be a mini broadcast.

[00:38:55] Stephen Fenech: Interestingly, Paul also mentioned that a lot of those were on their 5G, just standalone 5G. So that just proves the resilience of 5G being able cope with that.

[00:39:06] Trevor Long: Overall data usage though, and you know AFL fans will hate the comparisons continue with AFL, but it's obviously what happens here regularly. Overall data usage was up 30% on the West Coast Eagles-Western Bulldogs match at Optus Stadium in July despite similar crowd numbers. Yeah, that's, that's the, that's the reason they picked that game. Similar crowd, 52,000-odd people, and data usage up through the roof.

[00:39:28] Stephen Fenech: And what was it, was it Instagram that was the most common?

[00:39:31] Trevor Long: Instagram, I find this fascinating. Instagram, the most used social media platform, followed by Snapchat.

[00:39:40] Paul Milford: Wow.

[00:39:41] Trevor Long: See, when you think about it, TikTok's not in the top 3 or? Not even in the top, it's the 4th.

[00:39:45] Stephen Fenech: So Facebook, of course.

[00:39:46] Trevor Long: So Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and then TikTok. And you know, I thought about it, 'cause you think if I was to name popularity of platforms, I would go Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat. But when you see, especially young kids who, this would have been a lot of young people here. Snapchat's huge, right? And the thing about Snapchat is it's that whole quick snap. I'm sending it to this person, I'm sending it to this group. So there's a lot of that. That's why I think it would have peaked. But see, TikTok's not a now thing. There are people that go live on TikTok, but I think TikTok's more of a—

[00:40:17] Stephen Fenech: Share it later.

[00:40:18] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, 100%. You know, spend a day with me at the Australian football. Do you know what I mean? Like it's more of that kind of thing.

[00:40:23] Stephen Fenech: Yes, I understand.

[00:40:24] Trevor Long: I really want you to do a get ready with me get ready with me video. I'll do a get ready with me while I head to Trev's for the podcast today.

[00:40:31] Stephen Fenech: I might do that.

[00:40:32] Trevor Long: I'm choosing the green shirt.

[00:40:33] Stephen Fenech: Now that you've said it, and it'll be like an hour and a half long because you live so far away because I've got to drive down there.

[00:40:37] Trevor Long: I'm going to wear my green Tech Guide shirt.

[00:40:40] Stephen Fenech: Which color do we go for, blue or green, or which one?

[00:40:43] Trevor Long: Okay, oh, that's a good idea.

[00:40:44] Stephen Fenech: Good content ideas from Trevor here.

[00:40:45] Trevor Long: I'm here for you. But the last one is the most interesting. Yes, it is.

[00:40:49] Stephen Fenech: Well, you know, it wasn't just uploading to social media. People calling voice calls, and there was 10,960 calls, and they are just the ones that were on the Optus network.

[00:40:59] Trevor Long: Like, who are you calling?

[00:41:01] Stephen Fenech: I'll be saying, you know, we can have a guess where I am. Yeah, or I'll be— when I go to watch the footy or wherever I go, I always ring Joe or ring someone, my brother or someone, or we always make a little call.

[00:41:12] Trevor Long: That is just wild to me. Yeah, I just wanna— that was the most of all all these statistics.

[00:41:19] Stephen Fenech: Maybe because of the time difference. Maybe people, like you said, how many international visitors were here, they might be ringing home and saying, "Oh, the game's amazing. You should come next time." That could be it. Yeah.

[00:41:28] Trevor Long: That could be it.

[00:41:29] Stephen Fenech: Because of the time difference.

[00:41:30] Trevor Long: There you go. And all of that data helps Optus go, "Right, this is how people act today. This is how people live. This is how people use their devices." And what they can do is they compare. That's why they make these comparisons to AFL game. They can understand how this game's different into another game, you can make those plans, they can make changes to the network, they can understand the amount of actual bandwidth required. So when you do pack this place and when you have another event, like obviously the other one I'd be interested in is how does it perform differently during a concert? People are still very phone-based on their concert.

[00:42:04] Stephen Fenech: Are they ever?

[00:42:04] Trevor Long: I don't know whether it's more local, like I'm videoing locally or whether I'm sharing in real time. I think concerts are more—

[00:42:10] Stephen Fenech: I'd say, yeah, share later. Share later, yeah, definitely.

[00:42:13] Trevor Long: We'll have to dig into that data and find out.

[00:42:14] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely, wouldn't mind coming to a concert here, it'd be amazing.

[00:42:16] Trevor Long: You've been saying we were being walked around by one of the, I think the boss of the stadium. Geez, you dropped a lot of hints that you wanted to come back for the next State of Origin. Oh, here's a State of Origin jersey. I wouldn't mind coming back for the next one, lads. It'd be great to have you back for that one, hey?

[00:42:29] Stephen Fenech: Well, mate, you know what? Mel got a saying, mate. If you don't ask, you don't get. Okay, that's my motto in life.

[00:42:34] Trevor Long: I respect that. So I respect that.

[00:42:37] Voice Over: Take note.

[00:42:37] Trevor Long: And I'm just counting the number of seats here in the office booth. For the next State of Origin.

[00:42:40] Stephen Fenech: There's my seat right there.

Jane McNamara — Triple Zero, device safety and network outages

[00:42:42] Trevor Long: Right there. Two blokes talking tech. Two blokes talking Optus here at Optus Stadium. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech. Two blokes talking Optus this weekend. We're in Perth and we are joined by Jane McNamara from Optus. Jane, welcome. Lovely to have you with us.

[00:43:01] Jane McNamara: It's great to have you both in Perth.

[00:43:03] Trevor Long: Thank you for having us. We're delighted to be here.

[00:43:05] Stephen Fenech: Very impressed with this stadium. We've done a tour and we're looking forward to watching the match here.

[00:43:10] Trevor Long: Yeah, it's going to be great. We want to, though, we don't want to talk 6G, we don't want to talk network splicing, we want to talk about a bit of device safety and education because the entire telco industry has been through a lot in the last, well, several years. And I think one of the things that we keep hearing about now whenever there's a story about network downtime, network outages or whatever is Triple Zero. It's a real focus and it's an important focus for the industry. There's been Senate inquiries, there's been media reports, but let's just break it down for real people who are real customers of any telco, to be honest. Although you'll talk specifically from the Optus perspective, how do you look at this time in terms of the, I guess, confusion that exists for people around emergency calling and device safety?

[00:43:58] Jane McNamara: Look, it's been a very challenging 12 months, particularly in the telecommunications sector. You know, we've really navigated some very challenging service disruptions and outages, which of course has left communities really quite confused and concerned about network performance and what they should do. And so at Team Optus, you know, our commitment and our priority is really about making sure that our customers or any customer of a mobile network operator and communities really know what to do in the situation should there be a service disruption, a power outage, an emergency weather event that we're really spending time making sure we help our customers and communities know what to do, how to be best prepared.

[00:44:51] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, because the customers have got very high expectations. They sign up to Optus or any other network and they've got really high expectations. So obviously your goal is to meet those expectations and exceed those expectations.

[00:45:03] Jane McNamara: And they absolutely should, and rightly so. We are there to provide connectivity to, you know, 10 million customers each and every day. We rely on our phones and connectivity 24/7. And so we must, we must deliver that service performance, reliability and resiliency to our customers. And I know that that's the ambition of the sector as well.

[00:45:30] Trevor Long: But what's really interesting, even though it's been tough for Optus and others because they've had their issues as well in other networks, is we as an industry, as a community, have learnt a lot through that. Unfortunately, you've had to go through quite a lot for us to learn, but it's like It's been an eye-opener because little things like the reasons why those calls didn't connect. And one of them was really interesting. And I think, Jane, you and I speak a lot about this because it's our job to try and communicate to real people about this. But there was a time last year where even Apple was having to put out an announcement about a software update in certain phones. You know, there was a time when there was like 90 or 70 Samsung models and we were like, hang on a minute, What's happening here? So just help me understand or help our listeners understand what, what did, what was learned? How was that learned that there was actually device issues that were part of this kind of triple zero delays or challenges?

[00:46:28] Jane McNamara: Look, I think it really comes back to the fact that, you know, you both know this better than everyone. Technology changes at such a rapid pace and we are learning so much together. And I really think that particularly over the past 12 months, we're learning a lot about what happened post a 3G shutdown environment. We've learned a lot about how the mobile devices interact in a 4G, 5G environment. And these are all learnings that are happening in real time and that we as a, you know, telecommunications industry communications industry together with the mobile device manufacturers, you know, government regulators, we are all needing to work together to learn the lessons, heed the, heed the learnings, and then come together and look at what needs to change, what needs to do differently. So what we did learn is every mobile network is different. So the Optus network is different The Telstra network is different to the Vodafone network. And then each of those mobile phones and the manufacturers, whether you have a Samsung or a Google or an Apple phone, they're all set up very differently. And how they interact and behave on those different networks is again very different. So all of a sudden you have got millions of different scenarios ways in which the mobile phones engage and work and operate across Australia. So it, it, I think you were quite right, Trevor, in saying that we have learned so much, so much has changed, and we are now needing to work closer than we ever have before to make sure Australians, our customers, our communities are prepared and we continue to work together to test devices, to learn from it, you know, and to put in place some great, you know, education and tips for people across the country.

[00:48:33] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:48:33] Stephen Fenech: You mentioned the 3G shutdown and how that was kind of a learning experience for not only all the networks but also all the customers. But also you mentioned to the different brands, the different companies bringing smartphones in. Is there— could there be something done to make it easier for the networks for all those, for them to have some sort of standard that they all have to reach or that probably already exists. But is there something that if you could wave a magic wand and say, if only they did this, it'd be easier for everybody?

[00:49:01] Jane McNamara: I wish there was. I don't think there is. Yeah. I think there's absolutely, you know, key learnings and the way in which the industry is coming together and the way in which we, you know, do the device testing, engage with the manufacturers, you know, and continue to work with, you know, the regulators and governments. It is— it has to be a combined effort. I don't think there is one thing. And I think that speaks to the complexity of telecommunications and it speaks to the complexity of mobile.

[00:49:33] Trevor Long: But it also speaks to the complexity of the messaging here, right? We've got, you know, our audience probably a little more tech savvy, you know, a step above in terms of tech savvy than maybe the average audience. But it's incumbent upon our audience who hear this and go, "Yeah, I know that," to think about other people. So you've got to think about your elderly family, relatives, neighbors, people who are in different situations to you, you know, people that are like, "Ah, I don't need a new phone because it works fine." And I get that. Why would you upgrade your phone if it works fine? Also, Why is my phone telling me to give me new software? I don't need new software. It's working fine. So we need to take responsibility.

[00:50:10] Stephen Fenech: Sounds like what we hear every day from our listeners and readers.

[00:50:14] Trevor Long: And we need to take that responsibility for everyone in our kind of lives, don't we?

[00:50:18] Jane McNamara: 100%. It is all about community. It is about, you know, reaching out to those that might be vulnerable, you know, thinking about families and friends, thinking about, you know, maybe elderly members of our family, our parents, you know, our senior members of the community. We really have to make this a collaborative team effort in making sure that whether it's your next door neighbor, you know, an elderly friend, an elderly parent, that, you know, if you've got, if you know about this, share the wisdom, share the knowledge because it has to be not just, more education, we're asking for behavior change. And that's really different. And it takes repetition and it takes having the conversation over and over again to really drive what I think is behavior change. It's never been more different.

[00:51:12] Trevor Long: So let's talk through some of the learnings, okay? This is basically a bunch of things that you and the industry and we have observed over this period from learning through through all the different issues that have happened. And one of them is software. I mentioned it, you know, you get a software update. Some of us will take every software update. Thank you very much.

[00:51:29] Stephen Fenech: The message we always tell people is if there's an update, do it because it's going to help you. It's going to be better.

[00:51:34] Trevor Long: We would spend time, wouldn't we, saying it's good because it's for security. You know, there might be a patch that's there so your phone doesn't get hacked, right? Those kind of things. But now it's, yes, it's for security. Yep. It may also be because there's a compatibility, cool new feature.

[00:51:47] Jane McNamara: Yes.

[00:51:47] Trevor Long: But Well, something that we've learned is that essentially the software or the manufacturers are tweaking their software to ensure that they are better prepared for the way our 000 network works.

[00:52:00] Jane McNamara: Absolutely. It is because there could be bugs. It is because we are all doing so much lab testing on the different devices. So not only will the mobile network manufacturers Providers have their own reasons for wanting to push out software upgrades. But it will be sometimes as a consequence of testing, testing in different environments, testing on different networks and learning things about how that particular phone might be behaving on the network. And that upgrade, similar to the one that you mentioned with Apple, is all about making sure that your phone is best prepared.

[00:52:37] Stephen Fenech: There's one thing that it sounds really simple, kind of follows on from the updates is turn your phone, restart your phone. We get a lot of calls on live radio and people say, I've got this, my phone doesn't ring and it does this. And the first question I ask is, when's the last time you turned your phone off and on? And they go, oh, it's been months. I said, well, there you go.

[00:52:56] Trevor Long: And we don't just mean press the button so the screen goes black.

[00:52:59] Stephen Fenech: Restart it.

[00:52:59] Jane McNamara: Exactly.

[00:53:00] Stephen Fenech: And then a lot of people don't do that. So that's important to do as well, isn't it?

[00:53:05] Jane McNamara: We were just having this conversation earlier in the week, and people, you know, just, they can't stand to leave their phone, you know, on the desk, in another room, or maybe not take it out somewhere. You know, we're with it 24/7. Yes. And we talked about when would be the best time, you know, to turn off your phone. And we thought about when you're going to the gym, maybe you're doing your yoga class. I'm gonna need another example.

[00:53:31] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:53:32] Jane McNamara: Family dinner.

[00:53:33] Stephen Fenech: Well, you don't turn your phone off at night, you get your alarm clock. Yeah, so it's your alarm. So you got to find a spot. But even if you want to start it—

[00:53:39] Jane McNamara: shower, family dinner—

[00:53:41] Stephen Fenech: which needs just a small period, turn it off, turn it back on.

[00:53:43] Trevor Long: Yeah, that does work wonders because what you're doing there is you are completely resetting everything in the phone and saying, I'm ready to boot up again. But by booting up again, you're reconnecting fresh into the network. And that's probably the critical part of that.

[00:53:57] Jane McNamara: Yeah. Yeah. And it also helps. Ensure that the applications are all working accurately and correctly as well. So it kind of triggers that too.

[00:54:04] Trevor Long: There was a period where a lot of people were getting messages about their phones being kicked off the network. We're going to kick you off the network in 28 days because there is an obligation upon all the telcos to actually ensure that phones are 000 compliant. And if you discover a phone on your network that has not been tested or you know is not 000 compliant, you're required to notify the user and then actually deactivate that phone from your network. So this, this goes to people that are looking for a great deal on Alibaba on a phone that's never been sold in Australia. This goes for people who are traveling to Bali and they see a great deal on a phone they've heard about.

[00:54:41] Stephen Fenech: Another question we get asked a lot: if I buy a phone overseas, will it work here?

[00:54:45] Trevor Long: And it may be, maybe, maybe not, a great brand. It may be the same model that is sold in Australia, but what you don't understand is there's different variants of those phones that may have different antennas and chips in them that connect differently to networks. And that's why those phones may get— may come to Australia, and even though they'll make calls, yeah, even though you'll download photos, they may not work when you need the most, which is when you call 000.

[00:55:11] Stephen Fenech: Surprisingly too, a lot of, a lot of even major companies, major brands, if you buy their phone over overseas and bring it to Australia, something goes wrong with it, they don't honor the warranty in Australia either. So that's a sort of trap for young players there as well.

[00:55:23] Trevor Long: But you know, a grey import is a problem for people. And that's a key learning from this last 12 months, isn't it?

[00:55:29] Paul Milford: Yes.

[00:55:29] Jane McNamara: And even, you know, you also find even the Australian market, people reselling, you know, or refurbishing old phones. And that's, you know, another flag. They might not work, they might not have the right technology in them. They might not be able to work on a 4G, 5G network. So really, I would really hesitate in a grey device, overseas device, or an older refurbished device.

[00:55:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I think refurbished devices from reputable companies that do the testing and that you're assured there's warranties. So that would be rather than buying it off someone who's—

[00:56:06] Trevor Long: Facebook Marketplace would be where I'd be avoiding.

[00:56:09] Jane McNamara: Facebook Marketplace, yeah, yeah, yeah. A good deal on Facebook Marketplace.

[00:56:10] Trevor Long: Facebook Marketplace may lead you into some triple zero problems.

[00:56:13] Jane McNamara: Maybe.

[00:56:13] Trevor Long: Absolutely. To be clear, the telcos, not just you, the telcos are all active on this. And I can tell you this because, without going into detail, a phone that I've been using recently, which may not be made for the Australian market because we sometimes get pre-production phones, I received a message from a telco saying, hey, in 28 days this phone's not going to work anymore.

[00:56:32] Stephen Fenech: I got the same message. Yeah, I panicked a little bit, but then I got a phone call.

[00:56:35] Trevor Long: It's being a little proactive. Proactive about it and that you have to be, don't you? That's, it's literally legislative.

[00:56:41] Jane McNamara: It is that, but it's also, you know, that's our commitment to our customers. You know, your safety and the way in which we, you know, service our customers and making sure that we are looking after you, it is all part of that commitment and making sure we always champion the customer. So safety, reliability, resiliency, that has to be our commitment. I would just say on, you know, if you are in the market for a new phone or you're needing one, why not use things like end of financial year sales or the Cyber Sales? You know, phones are expensive. I understand that. And, you know, sometimes it can be tempting to go for a cheaper alternative, but why not look for those moments in the year where you might be able to get a good deal and wait until then?

[00:57:28] Trevor Long: Great advice. Plan B. Now that's an interesting one because you don't really think about that from a, like, let's be clear, the problem with this whole conversation around triple zero is the percentage of people in Australia who've ever called triple zero is low. The number, the chance of you needing to call triple zero is very low, but it's the most important thing that'll ever happen is needing to call triple zero. So thinking about this, it's just the same as having a bushfire escape plan and an evacuation plan for your family. Hopefully it never happens, but let's have a conversation about having an alternative. And you've suggested little things like, you know, a 365-day SIM, you know, just different options for another way to call.

[00:58:07] Jane McNamara: Yeah. And I think the interesting thing when you think about your phone, it is your photo album, it is your phone directory and phone book, it's your birthday book, it's probably your filing cabinet.

[00:58:20] Paul Milford: Yep.

[00:58:21] Jane McNamara: And when that's gone, oh my goodness, you know, and often your payment, you know, we put our credit cards on there as well.

[00:58:28] Paul Milford: That's right.

[00:58:29] Jane McNamara: So, Plan B is, you know, about those long-term plans, those 365-day plans without the monthly fees that you can buy. And that's a, you know, a great backup that you can, you know, just keep. Plan B is also, it's a little bit old school, but if you think about having your little pocketbook, you know, your hard, your hard paperback copybook that does have those emergency contacts, that has those important family and friends, that has maybe some of, you know, that information, you know, that you need should worst case scenario, your phone run out of battery or you lose your phone or something like that. So the plan B is things like that, you know, having those Battery backups is really important, those sorts of devices. If you've got a power bank, you have it 100% charged, ready to go. Should you be in a scenario where there might be a fire, a flood, a cyclone, you've got to evacuate, there is a service disruption, something like that.

[00:59:26] Trevor Long: We don't have a day-to-day relationship with our neighbor, but we have our neighbor's name and phone number on the fridge because if the kids, something happens and we're not home, the kids, and also for them, they know that they can contact us. It's little things like that. It is a bit going back old school and it doesn't, in some ways it's not logical. We're talking about triple zero, but knowing a number is important because it might not be triple zero you're trying to call and your phone might be in a black spot or battery dead and you need to just say, "Excuse me, can I grab your phone?" And who memorizes numbers nowadays? And there are scenarios.

[00:59:56] Stephen Fenech: It's hard. I couldn't remember, like I've got all my kids, all my, like I know my wife's number off by heart, but I wouldn't know my kids' numbers off by heart because they're, They're in the phone. Yes, yeah, that's right.

[01:00:06] Trevor Long: And there were scenarios in recent 000 issues where the neighbors were used. And so it's, you go to your neighbor like, my phone's not working. And that people, those people logically went, my phone doesn't work, I'm going to go to my neighbor and use it. So having that concept in your head of when I'm, maybe when I'm home or when I'm at work and when I'm in certain places, where will I go to make that next call? Another one, interesting one, is just pay phones. Like knowing where you're payphones are, is also an interesting thing because they too are a plan B, part of the plan B.

[01:00:34] Jane McNamara: Yeah, absolutely.

[01:00:35] Trevor Long: So the last one, and this is a tough one because it's an unbelievable learning for me that's come through the Senate hearings and everything that the different telcos have endured, is there's this weird thing, and we've all learned the term camp on. We didn't know what that was.

[01:00:51] Stephen Fenech: We're experts now.

[01:00:52] Trevor Long: I think everyone knew that your phone's meant to use any network in a 000 call if you're out of service. But we didn't know it was called camping on, which means if you're in a black spot for your carrier— so I'm using a Vodafone SIM right now, let's say, and then there's a black spot or an outage— my phone, if it can see a Telstra tower or an Optus tower, it can use that. It can camp on to either of those towers and make a 000 call. Same for a Telstra customer, will use Optus or Vodafone. An Optus customer can use Vodafone and Telstra. It's a great But what we've learned is that it may not be the normal phone call. When you pick up your phone and you go, and it normally takes a couple seconds, it goes ring ring, and then Stephen goes, oh, it's bloody Trevor, and he'll answer the phone, right? He'll put on a smile even though I'm on the other side of the line. Until I don't. I can hear the sigh before you answer. But instead of that couple of seconds and then ring ring, it could take some time. Now the time varies. I've been told 90 seconds by other telcos. You often say 60 seconds. It doesn't really matter. The fact is, when you call 000 in an emergency, in a network situation being either a black spot, no service, or an outage, it could take time for your phone to camp on. And we need to talk about that, Jane.

[01:02:06] Jane McNamara: Yeah, yeah, we do.

[01:02:07] Trevor Long: Yeah, we need to talk about it. Everyone needs to know.

[01:02:10] Stephen Fenech: That time you're waiting, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, I understand it it's just silence. You know, it's no, there's no, there's nothing happening on the phone. You're dialing 000 because it's an emergency. That 66 is going to seem like a year. So advice would be hang on the line, it'll eventually connect.

[01:02:28] Jane McNamara: Yes. And how Trevor, you described it, you know, is spot on, is that even if you're an Optus customer and there is a service disruption, making making a call to emergency services or calling 000 will mean that it automatically searches for another network for that call to be carried through to the 000 call person. That's right. And we know that sometimes it might drop out, the call might drop out, and that would just be like a call ends. It will sound like a call has ended. Yeah. But while if that doesn't happen, it means that it's still searching, it's still trying to find that other carrier either through, you know, Telstra or the Vodafone network to carry that call through. And we do know that that takes time because it's searching and it's searching. And we know that that can take a different amount of time to find that network. And you know what we have learned, it can be as quick as 20, 40 seconds, but it may be up to 60 or even over 60 seconds. And that is, you know, new information. You won't hear it.

[01:03:41] Trevor Long: We didn't know this 2 years ago, did we? That's right. I think the challenge is, and no one's diminishing the urgency of triple zero moment, and I hope never to need to call triple zero in an emergency like that. But so it's hard to hear that when you're in need of an emergency, you should wait. 60 seconds sounds like a for a very long time and it would feel like such a long time. I get that. But we're just trying to help people understand. And look, Jane, not really for you to comment on because it's my personal view and opinion, but I've watched a lot of Senate inquiries, Stephen, into this with senators grilling telcos, grilling ACMA, grilling the 000 Custodian, who I didn't know was a real person, but it's not just an office, it's a person and a group of people. But these people have been grilled about it And I feel like we need the government to take some responsibility with this. We need the government to initiate this conversation. We're having a great conversation here and we're really proud of our audience, but we need this conversation to happen on a much grander scale. It needs to be a public information campaign.

[01:04:40] Stephen Fenech: It needs to be better and easier. Yeah.

[01:04:42] Trevor Long: So we have to work through that.

[01:04:44] Stephen Fenech: But you know what they say, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. So hopefully if enough people are talking about it and there's urgency behind it, then something, you know, we can move it.

[01:04:52] Jane McNamara: And we are working, you know, really closely as an industry and as a sector to make sure that we can develop some of that public education to make sure it is easier to understand and that no matter which mobile network operator you're with, you know, we're getting that right information out to the community.

[01:05:13] Trevor Long: So the key learnings for us, the advice for people is to talk to your friends and family, talk to your elderly neighbors, your relatives, and, and think about your devices in a few different ways. Software updates are critical. If your phone doesn't have the latest software, it may not have the best ability to call 000. Restart your phone. Even though you turn it off every night and the screen goes blank, turn it off. Turn the phone off. When it boots up again, it'll reconnect to the networks and have the best chance of being ready to call 000. Don't— try not to buy phones that are grey imports or bought overseas because you cannot guarantee that they will work correctly in Australia. And they may— you buy a phone overseas, you may bring it back here and it may get kicked off the local networks because it doesn't meet local standards. Careful where you buy your phones. Buy Australian phones, phones sold in Australia from Australian retailers. Have a plan B. Think about how else you'll use communications to get in touch with either loved ones, neighbours, or 000. Think about who else around you has phones. Keep numbers that you would normally keep digitally, store them in a physical manner on the fridge or in a pocketbook. And most importantly, if you do need to call 000 in any case, especially if there's no coverage where you are, a black spot or a network outage of any kind, wait on the line. Take the time to wait 60 to 90 seconds and hopefully that call will go through and then try again. It's tough, it's a tough time to be thinking about whether or not your phone's going to work or not, but we need people to have safety around triple zero calls. I think it's really interesting learnings for people, and I'm really glad that you're bringing this to us. I hope that the government keeps listening, and I hope the government takes strong responsibility about this. Obviously, the telcos play a massive role. There should be a partnership between government and the telcos and everyone else, you know, the people that make the phones, the people that make the software, the people that sell the phones.

[01:06:56] Stephen Fenech: Part of a big ecosystem.

[01:06:57] Trevor Long: We need a, we need a much bigger conversation. Conversation about it going forward.

[01:06:59] Jane McNamara: And look, for our listeners, you know, I would also call out that we do have our customer center, so a dedicated customer contact center. You know, if ever in doubt, if anyone, you know, wants more information, wants to talk about things, great dedicated team there, or our retail shops across the country and indeed Perth, pop into a store. We've got, you know, teams there waiting to support customers with this sort of information or any other kind of information that can help. And yes, thank you, thank you so much for having me and for being in Perth with Optus.

[01:07:33] Trevor Long: Thanks for having us. Great to be here. Yeah, this is fantastic and great learning for everyone. So, Jane, thanks for being with us.

[01:07:38] Stephen Fenech: Thanks a lot.

[01:07:40] Trevor Long: Everything about tech you never wanted to know. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech. Funny part about watching video version of this show is that neither Steven or I have headphones, so we don't know what Sting was just playing.

[01:07:55] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[01:07:55] Trevor Long: Yet you decided to bop along. Well, like you do with the show.

[01:07:59] Stephen Fenech: Just by chance. Yeah.

[01:08:01] Trevor Long: Anyway, a lot of energy. Look, there's a lot to take in there. Okay. We learned a lot about the G's.

[01:08:07] Stephen Fenech: We did.

[01:08:07] Trevor Long: Big fan.

[01:08:08] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[01:08:08] Trevor Long: Big fan of the G's. We've learned a lot. Absolutely.

[01:08:11] Stephen Fenech: Some great tips as well on, you know, things to do with your devices, you know, not No, don't turn them on and off.

[01:08:17] Trevor Long: And we're not, we're not trying to scare people here. We're not trying to make people scared about Triple Zero. We're also not trying to shy away from the issues that networks have had. Pretty much all the networks have had over the last couple of years. And part of that for me is there's a new level of attention from the media on network outages. And fortunately or unfortunately, the first thing that comes up is not how many people were affected or how long we are out for. It was how many people tried to called Triple Zero during that moment, you know?

[01:08:43] Stephen Fenech: You know, let's hope though, and this isn't, this is a, all networks have a part in it.

[01:08:48] Trevor Long: Correct, yeah, we've learned that.

[01:08:50] Stephen Fenech: Learnings from it. Like, well, let's hope that we learn, we improve, and you can only learn from these incidents. So it's a learning opportunity.

[01:08:59] Trevor Long: I just hope everyone takes those basic tips, talks to the people in their communities and their lives and learns from that and gets fired up about 6G because I know Paul is.

[01:09:10] Stephen Fenech: Definitely, yeah.

[01:09:10] Trevor Long: I mean, that's his 10-year employment plan, you know.

[01:09:14] Stephen Fenech: Yep, definitely.

[01:09:16] Trevor Long: He's like, oh yeah, he's like, I could outlast Stephen Roos with 6G, hey.

[01:09:21] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it's coming, it's coming.

[01:09:23] Trevor Long: Anyway, thank you very much to the team at Optus for sponsoring this podcast and for having us over here in Perth and at Optus Stadium and for letting us come along to the football. Hopefully you learned something and you enjoyed that, and we'll be We'll be back again this week with every show you can expect on the Two Blokes Podcast Network. Should we just call it that? It's a network.

[01:09:42] Stephen Fenech: The network, of course.

[01:09:43] Trevor Long: Are you happy for Tech Guy to sign on to a network?

[01:09:45] Stephen Fenech: Definitely.

[01:09:46] Trevor Long: They've started testing the signs with actual Juventus and Inter now.

[01:09:50] Stephen Fenech: You suggested they put our photo up on the scoreboard.

[01:09:52] Trevor Long: That is the only failure of this trip. There's no one from Optus listening.

[01:09:55] Stephen Fenech: They could have put our photo up there, the Two Blokes picture.

[01:09:57] Trevor Long: We did expect to walk out.

[01:09:58] Stephen Fenech: Maybe on Saturday night for the soccer they'll do it for us. By the time you watch this, we would have been in front of 52,000 people. 60,000 people. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't— Two blokes.

[01:10:07] Trevor Long: It doesn't beat the Sphere though, for me.

[01:10:09] Stephen Fenech: So anyway, that's not bad. I think there were 60,000 people watching that.

[01:10:14] Trevor Long: But it was 8 minutes at the time. Two Blokes Talking Tech. We'll see you during the week, folks. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.