It had previously been coy about the root cause of the outage, with CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin telling this masthead last week that the failure was “a network event” that “triggered a cascading failure which resulted in the shutdown of services to our customers”.
The under-fire telco is offering free data to disgruntled customers – but some commentators say it needs to do more.Credit: AFR
Wednesday’s outage not only paralysed the nation’s telecommunication networks, but prompted long queues at Telstra and Vodafone retail stores as customers looked to shift providers.
It also affected other providers using the Optus network, including Amaysim, Vaya, Aussie Broadband, Moose Mobile, Coles Mobile, Spintel, Southern Phone, Gomo and Dodo Mobile.
The outage came a year after Optus suffered a massive data breach, in which more than 9 million current and former customers had their records accessed.
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As previously reported by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, Optus is offering aggrieved customers a free data top-up, but the industry watchdog says it is prepared to force the telecommunications company to offer large compensation payments (up to $100,000 for a business that could prove a loss and up to $1500 for individuals with a claim) if it refuses to settle customers’ claims.
“If you can see a customer has clearly been impacted, we’d be encouraging them to really own the complaint and deal with it,” telecommunications industry ombudsman Cynthia Gebert said.
“But if we need to take a strong line with Optus to get the right outcome for their customers, that’s what we will do.”
Optus’ offer was immediately slammed by Greens communications spokesman Sarah Hanson-Young, who said the “PR play” was not enough, and tech analyst Foad Fadaghi, who said “knee-jerk offers” could prompt more customers to ditch the business.
Embattled CEO Bayer Rosmarin is due to front a Senate inquiry into the 16-hour outage, while also answering to a separate government inquiry announced by Communications Minister Michelle Rowland.
The Senate inquiry kicks off this Friday.
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