The federal government’s inquiry into this month’s massive Optus outage will hone in on concerns Australians were unable to access the triple-0 emergency service, and whether government messaging during the incident was up to scratch.
Key points:
- A 14-hour Optus outage, where customers couldn’t access the internet or make phone calls, led to its CEO resigning
- A government review will look into the outage, particularly to if access to the triple-0 emergency line was hampered during the outage
- The inquiry will also investigate how effective government messaging was during the outage
More than 10 million customers were confronted with no phone and internet access for up to 14 hours on November 8, with the telco blaming a software upgrade for bringing down the network.
The saga led to the resignation of chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin last week, who said it was “in the best interest of Optus moving forward” for a new boss to step in.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland announced plans for an investigation into the incident, to be led by her department, the day after the outage.
The government has now released the terms of reference for the probe, saying it wanted to “uncover the lessons for government and the telecommunications industry” from the incident.
Central to the review is whether access to the triple-0 emergency line was hampered during the outage.
It will look at the “technical settings required to ensure the continued access to triple-0” and “the circumstances in which other networks may be relied on to support a network that is subject to a major outage”.
The findings of the probe, led by former Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) chief executive Richard Bean, will report back by the end of February.
Australians are meant to be able to contact emergency services on their mobiles even if the network they use is down, with phones jumping to another network.
In an appearance before a Senate committee, Ms Bayer Rosmarin said Optus was aware of more than 200 customers unable to contact triple-0.
ACMA has also launched an investigation into the issue.
“The recent Optus outage caused significant disruption to the lives of millions of Australians, impacted small businesses, and left many without the ability to contact emergency services,” Ms Rowland said.
“We need to learn the lessons from this serious incident because no network is immune from technical faults or outages.”
Government messaging to come under scrutiny
The inquiry will also investigate how effective government messaging was during the outage.
When the Optus network went down, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland fronted the media hours before Ms Bayer Rosmarin started doing interviews.
In what was seen as a thinly veiled criticism of Optus executives, Ms Rowland urged the company to take to TV and radio airwaves to provide their customers with timely information about the outage.
The departmental review will look at the “role of government in managing and responding to national service outages” including “public messaging by government agencies”.
The probe will not look at the technical causes of the Optus outage, or deal with the debate around compensation for customers.
Optus had offered free data to customers in the days after the outage to apologise for the inconvenience caused.
That was met with criticism, particularly from business customers who lost income over the day.
“Australians expect and deserve better from their communications service providers when these kinds of incidents arise and I would encourage all to have their say – from impacted businesses and industry through to consumers,” Ms Rowland said.