Broadband News

Thu, 13th Nov 2025

Australia's AUKUS base to connect to subsea cables

Australia's AUKUS submarine fleet base and its vicinity are being quietly connected to three powerful new undersea internet cables planned by Google and SUBCO, documents viewed by Reuters show.

Source: iTnews Australia

HCF chases near real-time intelligence on members' digital experience

Health insurer HCF intends to use a suite of monitoring tools to finetune its digital experience, with the aim of being alerted “the minute a member’s having a bad experience”.

Source: iTnews Australia

Meta, Microsoft respond to government’s rebooted news tax

The tech giants have reacted to the push for them to hand over millions of dollars from their domestic revenue to local media companies, or pay a higher amount in financial penalties.

Source: SMH

Tue, 11th Nov 2025

ACMA altering outage data handling as public register nears

The communications regulator will "refine" its procedures for handling increasing volumes of carrier outage notification data as it prepares for the arrival of the Triple Zero Guardian and the incoming public outage register.

Source: iTnews Australia

Mon, 10th Nov 2025

Commercial spyware targeted Samsung Galaxy users for months

Security researchers at Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 division have documented a previously unknown Android commercial spyware that exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Samsung devices throughout 2024 and early 2025.

Source: iTnews Australia

Wed, 05th Nov 2025

Which social media apps will ban Australian users under-16?

Nine platform are included in Australia's world-first social media ban for under 16s next month, however the regulator warns that list could grow.

Source: ABC News

Australia includes Reddit, Kick in teen social media ban

Australia's internet watchdog has widened its world-first teen social media ban to include Reddit and video live streaming platform Kick, and said more sites could be added if their main role was to enable online social interaction.

Source: iTnews Australia

Tue, 04th Nov 2025

Samsung triple zero handset firmware mystery deepens

The mystery over how 71 Samsung mobile phones were delivered to Australian consumers with firmware problems that might leave users high and dry when trying to make distress calls has deepened.

Source: iTnews Australia

Mon, 03rd Nov 2025

Optus takes on 450 staff to address triple zero crisis

Optus chief Stephen Rue has introduced drastic changes across the telco’s call centre and network management divisions in a bid to address the carrier’s triple zero service failures and stave off calls for his resignation.

Source: iTnews Australia

Savaged Optus boss faces claims of misleading Senate

The telco will add 300 people to its Australian call centres and will on-shore its network operations in response to the fatal network failure.

Source: SMH

Sun, 02nd Nov 2025

Optus fast-tracks network operations insourcing from Nokia

Optus has revealed that it will accelerate plans bring network functions currently outsourced to Nokia back in-house in response to September's triple zero outage on its network.

Source: iTnews Australia

Thu, 30th Oct 2025

Aussie Broadband launches Fortinet-powered SASE offering

Aussie Broadband has released a fully managed secure access service edge (SASE) solution which was created in partnership with Fortinet.

Source: ARN

Tue, 28th Oct 2025

Amazon to cut about 14,000 corporate jobs in AI push

Amazon will reduce its global corporate workforce by about 14,000 people, with more cuts expected next year, in a major shakeup driven in part by adoption of artificial intelligence at the tech giant.

Source: iTnews Australia

The $4.1 million question: How did the BOM get its new website so wrong?

The Bureau of Meteorology claims it spent the amount on a website and app redesign as part of a broader $866 million transformation dubbed “Robust”. Users are not pleased.

Source: SMH

Google's Tabua cable to be covered by extended Sydney protection zone

Google’s Tabua submarine cable will now land in a designated protection zone in Sydney’s south after the communications regulator agreed to expand the zone boundaries.

Source: iTnews Australia

Panic as breached details of 183m accounts, including Gmail, emerge

The news isn’t nearly as bad as some online would have you believe, but it’s always a good idea to check your security.

Source: SMH

Fri, 24th Oct 2025

AWS outage caused by "unlikely interaction" between automated systems

The Amazon Web Services outage in North Virginia was caused by a software bug in an automated DNS management system that caused one automated component to delete another’s work.

Source: iTnews Australia

ACMA rejects draft consumer code as calls to end self-regulation grow louder

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has accused carriers of taking a weak stance when it comes to safeguarding the interests of Australian telecommunications consumers.

Source: iTnews Australia

Telstra finds firmware locked Samsung handsets to Vodafone for Triple-0 calls

Australian users of about 70 dated Samsung handsets face being cut off from mobile service due to problems with their devices’ firmware, which exclusively attempts to route Triple Zero calls to the shuttered Vodafone 3G network.

Source: iTnews Australia

Thu, 23rd Oct 2025

Vocus scores three new federal government contracts

The federal government has awarded Vocus three telecommunications contracts valued at around $6 million over the next three years.

Source: iTnews Australia

Optus brings in ex-NBN Co CIO to run technology

Optus’ chief information officer of four years Mark Potter will leave the telco in March of next year to make way for NBN Co’s veteran IT chief, John McInerney.

Source: iTnews Australia

Wed, 22nd Oct 2025

ACMA cracks down on mobile 000 'camp-on' failures

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has tightened mobile phone testing standards and imposed new network equipment monitoring rules on carriers as the fallout over recent emergency call failures continues.

Source: iTnews Australia

Tue, 21st Oct 2025

This ChatGPT browser is genuinely impressive. Will anyone actually use it?

OpenAI’s AI-powered browser can book holidays and build shopping lists while you browse. But it’s competing against the most stubborn force in tech: user habits.

Source: SMH

Telstra completes one-third of national fibre rollout

Telstra has completed one-third of the rollout of a new national fibre network that it is now branding as 'Aura'.

Source: iTnews Australia

‘They’re watching’: How Monday’s internet crash became China’s training

Trump’s former cyber boss warns China and criminals are studying internet crashes such as the AWS outage to launch devastating strikes on Australia.

Source: SMH

Telstra’s Aura Network to add AUD $29 billion to Australia’s GDP as Sydney-Melbourne route opens

Telstra has activated the Sydney-Melbourne coastal leg of its new fibre network, now called the Aura network, a critical milestone in Telstra’s $1.6 billion investment aimed at powering Australia’s digital future.

Source: iTWire

Telstra activates new $1.6B fibre coastal link Aura Network

Telstra has unveiled the next iteration of its $1.6 billion fibre network – a Sydney to Melbourne coastal route and a rebranding from Intercity Fibre Network to Aura Network.

Source: ARN

Why one company’s glitch just broke half the internet

When Amazon sneezes, the world catches a cold. It’s time we stopped accepting that as normal.

Source: SMH

Mon, 20th Oct 2025

Internet still struggling after mammoth Amazon outage

Amazon’s cloud arm is still struggling to recover after a major cloud services outage impacted the likes of Canva, Roblox, Snapchat, Amazon and other companies globally, including in Australia, affecting millions of users and effectively bringing the internet to a standstill.

Source: SMH

Major AWS outage disrupts apps and services worldwide

Network connectivity issues in AWS' US-EAST-1 facility have caused widespread outages affecting thousands of websites along with some of the world's most popular apps - Snapchat and Reddit - and disrupted businesses globally.

Source: iTnews Australia