Outage Communications Policy

1. Purpose and scope

This Policy supports Alder’s obligations as a carriage service provider supplying services to end users under the Telecommunications (Customer Communications for Outages) Industry Standard 2024, as varied. It applies to relevant carriage services including internet and mobile services, excluding services outside the scope of the Standard.

It covers communications during qualifying unplanned outages. Ordinary single-customer faults and minor incidents may still be communicated through normal support channels even where the regulatory major/significant-local thresholds are not met.

2. What Alder treats as an outage

An outage is an unplanned adverse network impact that prevents affected end users from establishing and maintaining a relevant carriage service. A fault affecting one customer is not automatically a regulatory network outage. The carrier operating the affected network determines whether a major or significant local outage threshold is met and notifies relevant downstream providers.

3. Major outages

Under the current Standard, a major outage is an unplanned adverse network impact that prevents use of a carriage service, is expected to last or lasts longer than 60 minutes, and affects or is likely to affect at least 100,000 services in operation or all carriage services supplied using the affected network in a state or territory.

When Alder is notified that customers are affected by a major outage, we activate the communication process in this Policy and use both public and direct channels as required.

4. Significant local outages

A significant local outage is a qualifying outage that is not a major outage and meets the regional/remote thresholds in the Standard. At the date of this Policy, this includes:

• 250 or more services in remote Australia expected to be affected for 3 or more hours; or
• 1,000 or more services in regional Australia expected to be affected for 6 or more hours.

The applicable remoteness classification and thresholds are determined under the Standard as amended from time to time.

5. How Alder receives and validates outage information

Alder may detect service issues through managed-network telemetry, customer reports, wholesale alarms or operational monitoring. Regulatory classification of a major/significant-local outage usually depends on notification and information from the responsible carrier or Wholesale Supplier.

We record the incident source, affected Alder services where known, upstream reference, geographic impact, start time, expected update time and material customer communications.

6. Communication channels

Depending on the incident, customer contact information and supplier data available, Alder may use:

• My Alder in-app notifications and status information;
• email;
• SMS or push notification where enabled and operational;
• the public Alder network-status page;
• website notices or banners;
• live chat and phone messaging; and
• other appropriate public channels.

We use a mix of public and direct methods appropriate to the affected services. During an outage, one communications channel may itself be unavailable, so customers should use another available channel if needed.

7. Update frequency

For a major outage, Alder will attempt to notify affected customers and provide updates at the cadence required by the Standard. At the date of this Policy, this means at least one update every 6 hours during the first 24 hours and at least one update in each subsequent 24-hour period for the duration of the outage, unless a specific rule or exception applies.

We may update more frequently when there is a material change, reliable restoration estimate or significant new information. Significant local outages are communicated in accordance with the applicable Standard and upstream outage information.

8. What outage communications contain

To the extent known and appropriate, communications may include:

• that an outage is occurring and the service types affected;
• affected locations or geographic area;
• known start time or detection time;
• the high-level cause, if known and suitable to publish;
• what is being done to restore service;
• the expected restoration time, if a reliable estimate exists;
• when the next update is expected;
• urgent-assistance contact information; and
• confirmation when service is restored.

We will not invent an estimated restoration time where the responsible network has not provided a reliable estimate.

9. Public status and My Alder

Alder maintains public and customer-facing status capabilities. Live status information is separate from a customer’s commercial service status: an account may remain active while the network is experiencing an outage. Conversely, an active service record alone is not proof that live connectivity is healthy.

Where supplier information is available, Alder may display affected services, incident details, updates and restoration status in My Alder or the public status page.

10. Urgent assistance during qualifying outages

Priority Assistance or another critical circumstance may be relevant to urgent assistance. A general outage update is not a substitute for emergency services.

11. Natural-disaster outages

The Standard contains different communication requirements where a qualifying outage is caused by a defined natural disaster. Alder will follow the natural-disaster provisions applying at the time, including the applicable public website information and urgent-assistance obligations.

Even where a direct notification requirement differs because of a natural disaster, Alder will provide useful customer information through available channels where reasonably practicable.

12. Resolved outage registers

From 30 June 2026, carriers must maintain public registers for resolved major and significant local outages covered by the Standard. A carriage service provider such as Alder is required to provide public links to the relevant carrier outage registers rather than create a duplicate carrier register where the law does not require one.

Relevant public registers/information for Alder services can include:

• nbn major and significant local outage register for NBN network outages; and
• Aussie Broadband network outage information and resolved outage history for relevant wholesale/carrier services, including links to underlying mobile-network outage information.

The applicable carrier register is the authoritative historical record for carrier-level resolved outage fields. Alder’s live status page can contain additional customer-specific operational information.

13. Outage reports and complaints

A report that a service is down is initially treated as a fault/outage report. If the issue is determined to be a major or significant local outage and the Complaints Handling Standard requires the report to be handled as a network-outage complaint, Alder will record and manage it accordingly.

Customers retain the right to make a formal complaint about outage handling. See the Complaints Handling Policy. A notified mass outage may affect particular complaint delay/TIO notification rules in the manner permitted by the Standard.

14. Planned maintenance

Planned maintenance is not treated as an unplanned outage merely because it interrupts service. Where planned work is expected to materially affect customer connectivity, Alder or the relevant supplier will provide advance notice where reasonably practicable and required. Emergency maintenance can require shorter notice.

15. Accessibility, records and review

Outage communications must be clear, timely and accessible. We aim to use plain language and communication methods that are reasonably accessible to people with disability and culturally or linguistically diverse customers. Important communications should identify where additional help is available.

Alder retains appropriate incident and communication records to demonstrate compliance and support post-incident review. This Policy is reviewed after material regulatory changes and significant operational incidents where improvements are identified.