It is important for mobile phone customers to provide accurate and up-to-date information to carriage service providers to ensure that home addresses can be found in an emergency situation, AMTA Chief Executive Officer, Chris Althaus, told Channel 10 news this week.

Channel 10 was following up a story of the tragic death of a woman who jumped from a balcony in a Sydney high rise apartment to escape an alleged attacker. Police have confirmed that they could not locate the woman who called emergency 000 just before she died because they did not have a unit number for her address.

Mr Althaus said the mobile telecommunications industry took seriously its responsibility to provide accurate information on customers’ addresses to the industry regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

The information goes into a system called the Integrated Public Number Database, which is used by the triple – 0 emergency network.

“The best way the industry can help to assist the safety of the public is to provide accurate information for the triple – 0 emergency network. The only way we can do that is with the help of our customers in providing full and accurate address information,” Mr Althaus.

He said customers who live in high-rise apartments should include their unit number in their address and not just the street number to assist emergency services to locate them.

Mr Althaus said: “More than 60% of all emergency calls are made from mobile devices. That is seven million calls last year and address information is a key facet, it must be accurate and it must be up to date.”

He said the mobile telecommunications industry was spending $10 million a year to meet the requirements of the Federal Government’s new ID prepaid identity check forms to assist investigations by police and national security agencies