Australia's major telcos are preparing for up to 150,000 people getting cut off from telecommunications, including emergency calls, after the 3G network shuts down.
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Telstra and Optus executives have appeared before a Senate inquiry into the closure of the ageing 3G mobile network, committing to their shut down deadlines from August 31.
Both telcos have been ramping up campaigns to encourage customers to upgrade their devices via social media campaigns, letters, text messages, calls and community meetings.
They have also provided thousands of free or subsidised handsets to disadvantaged customers.
Despite their efforts the telcos expect some users will not upgrade before the network closes.
When asked how many people will be worse off and lose access to triple-zero, phone banking and telehealth services, Optus executive Harvey Wright said it could be as many as 150,000 users.
"The migration experience that we've had to date is that you have to do two things: create awareness and remove barriers for customers to act, but then also prepare for the fact that some will not," Mr Wright told the inquiry at parliament house in Canberra on Wednesday.
"It's just human nature."
Telstra executives could not provide a similar estimate, but anticipated there would be customers who would not upgrade before the closure.
"We are planning to get that as close to zero as possible, but we know it won't be zero," Telstra executive Justine Rowe told the inquiry.
Both telcos said they had back-up plans to help any customers cut off.
The federal government and industry have been particularly focused on reducing the number of devices that are not compatible with 4G for emergency calls.
These devices - often bought overseas or second-hand - use 4G data for regular calls and texts, but bump triple-zero calls to 3G because they are not enabled with a technology called Voice over LTE.
Users may not realise their phone is configured this way by the manufacturer until the 3G network is switched off and they need to call the emergency line.
Both telcos said the scale of the issue was not known until early this year, when there were an estimated 740,000 affected devices.
There were about 65,000 of those devices still in use as of Friday, the telcos told the inquiry.
All telcos, including TPG/Vodafone, have a service for customers to check the status of their device by texting "3" to the number 3498.
Telstra's government relations manager John Hewitt said it had left "no stone unturned" to identify affected devices, analysing 14 billion call records and eight million triple-zero calls.
Telstra and Optus have both committed to providing equivalent 4G coverage.
Health, communications and transport organisations are due to front the inquiry later on Wednesday.
Australian Associated Press
