Australia’s telecommunications regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), requires telcos to check on people who have tried to call emergency services during network outages but fail to get through.
Optus said it would update the senate record and had given information to ACMA, which is investigating Optus’ compliance with its regulatory obligations. It plans to hire an independent third party to review how it conducts welfare checks and is also writing to affected customers to apologise.
“Optus will continue to co-operate with ongoing investigations by the government, the senate committee and the ACMA into the outage,” a company spokesman said. “We will commit to implement any recommendations of this independent review and share the findings with the ACMA and the senate committee.”
Optus has a history of poor transparency and is fighting a court battle to try to keep secret a report from consultants Deloitte into its 2022 cyberattack.
Ms Bayer Rosmarin resigned from Optus in late November and the company is being run by chief financial officer Michael Venter while its parent Singtel searches for a permanent CEO.
Singapore-based Peter Kaliaropoulos, who has joined in the newly created position of chief operating officer, is considered a leading candidate. He previously ran Singaporean telco group StarHub between 2018 and 2020.
During the Senate hearing, Ms Bayer Rosmarin pushed back against claims Optus should stump up for customer compensation and be fined for the failure to connect some triple-zero calls.
Senator Hanson-Young accused the former Optus CEO of trying to dodge accountability and “share the blame around”.
The senate inquiry is due to report at the end of February.
