COMMUNITY views will be sought on the impact of Telstra's Warrnambool exchange fire as part of an inquiry.
No date has been announced for the start of the inquiry, but Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Stephen Conroy said it would identify what lessons could be learnt from the exchange fire, that left more than 60,000 residents without fixed line telecommunications services.
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"I understand the frustration felt by the people and businesses that have been left without a phone and other services," Senator Conroy said.
Federal member for Wannon Dan Tehan welcomed the inquiry and said south-west Victorians had been extremely patient under very difficult circumstances.
"Their lives and the finances of our local businesses have been significantly impacted by this outage," he said.
The inquiry would be conducted by the Department of Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy.
It would analyse the fire's cause, damage, and what services were affected.
The inquiry would also receive a report on the effectiveness of fire prevention and mitigation strategies, and hold a public forum on the impact of the fire on the community.
The effectiveness of disaster recovery and service continuity planning for telecommunications infrastructure would also be looked at and whether businesses that might be affected by such events should also have appropriate continuity plans.
