This is the best summary I could come up with:

More Australians like Serge are likely to be caught out by further 3G shutdowns this year, with millions of Telstra and Optus customers (as well as those using smaller providers on those two networks) to lose 3G coverage in the coming months.

Serge said he also checked the phones of some family members and found some of their devices also didn’t have VoLTE enabled by default, which caused issues when their 3G network disappeared.

However, Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert said telcos were not required by law to continue to offer 3G services, which is why her office could not refer complaints it received about the decision to shut down 3G networks to any regulator.

The ombudsman’s office said it would “not be able to handle complaints about having no coverage as a result of the shutdown, requests for the 3G network to stay connected, or handsets and devices that are no longer working and were not supplied as part of a current contract”.

What’s more, a 2023 report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found that many remote Indigenous communities were still relying on 3G networks, and already had poor or no coverage.

Mr Gregory from RMIT said the major telcos had been communicating the change with customers “reasonably well”, but smaller providers — also known as Mobile Virtual Network Operators, or MVNOs — appeared to be less proactive.

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