Broadband News
Wed, 30th Sep 2026
Home Affairs orders gov-wide 'legacy' system stocktake within six months
Home Affairs has ordered all federal departments and agencies to “conduct a legacy technology stocktake” within six months, after an AI agent exposed configuration weaknesses in an older data portal.
Source: iTnews Australia
Tue, 29th Sep 2026
Vodafone becomes Australia's first telco to launch a 48-month mobile payment plan as Australians hold onto phones for longer
Vodafone is Australia’s first telco to launch a 48-month, interest-free mobile device payment plan, giving customers greater choice and flexibility in how they pay for their next phone.
Source: iTWire
OpenAI agent accessed "credentials" via Medicare data portal
OpenAI has admitted the model that gained non-public access to a Medicare statistics portal also ran commands and retrieved credentials, going beyond its earlier account that only aggregate health statistics and internal file names were accessed.
Source: iTnews Australia
Telstra payphone granted heritage status
A Telstra payphone on the NSW south coast has earned heritage listing “on social and historical grounds” for the role it played in connecting the area to the outside world during a major bushfire.
Source: iTnews Australia
Mon, 28th Sep 2026
Australia Post signs three-year deal with Telstra
Australia Post has signed a three-year, “multimillion-dollar” agreement with Telstra for connectivity for its almost 4000 locations.
Source: iTnews Australia
AusPost calls on Telstra for three-year connectivity agreement
Telstra has secured a multimillion-dollar, three-year delivery agreement with Australia Post to bolster the postal service provider’s digital infrastructure for close to 4,000 locations across the country.
Source: ARN
Sun, 27th Sep 2026
OpenAI, Anthropic CEOs called to appear at Australian AI probe
The CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic have been called to appear at an Australian senate inquiry on AI, the head of the probe said on Sunday, days after the revelation that a rogue OpenAI bot had accessed health system statistics.
Source: iTnews Australia
Fri, 25th Sep 2026
Meta floats project to lay first petabit submarine fiberoptic cable
The 7,000 km (4,350 mile) cable, called Petal, will connect the US and France. Meta is partnering with NEC and Sumitomo Electric Industries to build it, and working with French telecommunications company Orange to coordinate the landing of the cable on the French coast.
Source: Computerworld
Thu, 24th Sep 2026
Vocus adds second project to its Australian Digital Infrastructure Platform
Vocus will look to implement long-haul fibre route from Brisbane to Darwin as the second project in its Australian Digital Infrastructure Platform (ADIP).
Source: ARN
Tue, 22nd Sep 2026
Telstra deploys AI agent to help it meet customer service guarantee
Telstra is using AI agents powered by Salesforce to assist it in meeting its customer service guarantee obligations, with additional use cases planned.
Source: iTnews Australia
Mon, 21st Sep 2026
‘I’d love to see more of it’: Telstra backs data centre boom amid backlash
The telco owns the cable that would connect new AI infrastructure and says Australia is ideal for an accelerated development despite opposition.
Source: SMH
Aussie mobile telcos face 'automatic' customer compensation for outages
Australian telcos should have to meet mandatory reliability and performance standards and “automatically” compensate customers impacted by outages, a major review has recommended.
Source: iTnews Australia
Sun, 13th Sep 2026
Tech leaders call for urgent global slowdown on AI
Tech leaders are calling for an urgent global slowdown on artificial intelligence and warning self-training AI is evolving faster than safety guard rails can handle.
Source: SMH
Optus outage attributed to hardware failure at exchange
A hardware failure at an Optus exchange in Victoria is being blamed for an Optus voice outage on Friday that triggered welfare checks by authorities in three states.
Source: iTnews Australia
Fri, 11th Sep 2026
Anthropic finds evidence of a fourth AI escaping from containment
Anthropic has owned up to a fourth security incident involving its AI model, Claude, escaping onto the open internet and attacking other organizations during a test of cybersecurity abilities on what was believed to be a closed system.
Source: Computerworld
Wed, 09th Sep 2026
Apple unveils $3499 passport-shaped iPhone Duo
Apple has redefined its flagship smartphone with the launch of the Duo, a folding iPhone starting from $3499, betting its design and promises of data privacy will let it leap ahead of rivals who have been selling folding phones for years.
Source: iTnews Australia
Sun, 06th Sep 2026
Telstra had no shortage of warnings before its outage. How did it miss them?
Chief executive Vicki Brady’s absence was a sideshow during the July failure. The real question is how the company let its network become so vulnerable.
Source: SMH
Wed, 02nd Sep 2026
Telstra’s only timing experts were on a required break before network fell over
The pair had replaced a faulty power supply in Melbourne in the early hours of July 8 but were at home on mandatory rest by the time the outage hit, an external review has found.
Source: SMH