Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has resigned after a chaotic outage that disconnected millions of Australians from their phones and the internet, bringing much of the country to a grinding halt.
Bayer Rosmarin – who was appointed in 2020 – dodged the question about whether she would remain at the helm of the telecommunications giant when she fronted a senate inquiry on Friday over the November 8 blackout.
She spent the last two weeks in damage control, apologising for the mayhem caused when 10 million Australians, 400,000 businesses – including Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ – and much of the wider population felt the impact of services going down.
Of particular concern was that triple-0 calls failed during the outage.
What has Optus boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said in her resignation?
“On Friday I had the opportunity to appear before the Senate to expand on the cause of the network outage and how Optus recovered and responded. I was also able to communicate Optus’ commitment to restore trust and continue to serve customers,” Bayer Rosmarin said.
“Having now had some time for personal reflection, I have come to the decision that my resignation is in the best interest of Optus moving forward.
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“It’s been an honour and privilege to lead the team at Optus and to serve our customers.”
Optus wasn’t aware of triple-0 outage: ‘Not acceptable’
Optus has been lashed in the wake of the outage for its handling of the crisis, as thousands were left without service and businesses, hospitals and train services impacted.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has begun an investigation into Optus’s compliance with the rules on emergency calls.
A total of 228 calls to triple-0 failed to connect during the outage, leaving Optus puzzled as to why.
“We absolutely believe that the triple zero system should have worked and it’s critical for all Australians the system can be relied upon,” Bayer Rosmarin told the Senate.
She admitted it was “indisputable that on that day our performance was not acceptable”.
Australians were incensed over Optus’ offer of 200GB of data to remedy lost trust over the outage, many demanding fare more significant compensation.
Businesses who lost revenue and those unable to work in the outage have been told to keep receipts of their losses for potential compensation.
“We recognise the need for Optus to regain customer trust and confidence as the team works through the impact and consequences of the recent outage and continues to improve,” SingTel Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon said in a statement.
Chief financial officer Michael Venter has been appointed as Optus’ interim CEO.
Optus outage: What you need to know
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Who was impacted? An estimated 10.2 million mobile, landline and broadband customers and 400,000 businesses were without service from early November 8, with Optus stating services resumed about 6pm AEDT.
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What caused the outage: Company parent SingTel said fault in Optus’ safety mechanisms caused the outage. Optus earlier said the company’s network was affected by “changes to routing information from an international peering network” after a “routine software upgrade”.
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Is it a cyber attack? Fair question given 1 in 2 Aussies had their data compromised last year, but no.
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Why does it matter if I am not with Optus? You could argue the vast majority of Australia was impacted in one way or another. People couldn’t communicate. There’s a story of a Sydney woman missing her mum’s final moments. Triple-0 calls and hospitals were caught up. The trickle-down to non-Optus customers was evident when public transport couldn’t be used, Uber was down, and major banks’ call centres were out. The local cafe couldn’t take payments – bad for you not getting caffeine but worse for them missing out on revenue.
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Are people getting compensation? 200GB has been offered by Optus to impacted customers. An inquiry will delve further into if that’s enough. Australian Media and Communications Authority (AMCA) has also told customers impacted to file a formal complaint, according to rights guaranteed under Australian consumer law.
With NCA
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