The AFAC 2025 Conference and Exhibition last week brought together emergency management leaders from across Australasia to explore strategies for strengthening disaster resilience and safeguarding communities.

A key focus at AFAC25 was the vital role of reliable mobile connectivity in times of crisis. During the event, we presented a poster showcasing our research on single-carrier reliant communities—areas where mobile coverage is provided by only one carrier. These communities face a heightened risk of isolation if an outage affects their sole service provider.

Identifying these at-risk communities is essential to ensuring emergency preparedness and supporting the operations of first responders. By sharing our findings, we aim to equip emergency services and government agencies with the insights they need to plan smarter, prepare earlier, and respond faster. Our message also emphasized the importance of advancing towards real-time outage and network coverage data sharing as a critical next step in resilience planning.

Our Customer and Emergency Management representatives—Rania Wannous, Joshua Weston, and Ani Bachhil—actively contributed to these discussions, reinforcing our commitment to helping build stronger, safer communities through reliable connectivity.