A tech expert has taken Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin to task over the telco’s “unprecedented” nationwide outage and the subsequent compensation it will provide to millions of disgruntled customers who are seeking compensation.
Australia’s second-largest telecommunications provider crashed early on Wednesday morning, leaving their users around the country without service for almost 14 hours.
The blackout meant people could not contact emergency services from landlines, public transport was delayed in Melbourne, businessowners could not open or were forced to delay operating hours and phone lines in some hospitals also went down.
Optus released a statement on Thursday saying a “network event… triggered a cascading failure which resulted in the shutdown of services to our customers”.
Sky News Australia host Peter Stefanovic questioned the vagueness of the provider’s explanation in an interview with tech expert and EFTM Editor Trevor Long.
“I don’t think we’re meant it know what it was. They don’t want to admit any failure of their own,” Mr Long said on First Edition on Friday.
Tech experts suspect a misconfiguration of routers led to the meltdown.
It was exasperated by Optus engineers being offshore, meaning the company had to find employees internally who could fix the issue.
Mr Long agreed with Stefanovic’s sentiment that it was an “embarrassment” for Optus and labelled the crippling outage as the “longest and biggest” in Australia.
“I think we all have to accept and admit, as the CEO says, infrastructure fails, networks go down… but to fail on this level is unprecedented, despite what the CEO tries to say basically arguing that I’m not correct in saying this is the biggest outage we’ve ever had,” he said.
The issue was first reported by customers about 4am, with some back online just before 1pm, however, services were not fully restored until about five hours later.
The EFTM editor also argued the “biggest” failure of Optus was not the collapse of the network but the lack of information to customers, referencing an outage from Telstra.
The telco provider first shared a message to X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday at 6:47am saying it was “aware of an issue impacting… mobile and nbn services”.
Just under two hours later it said teams were working “urgently” to fix the issue and apologised to customers who had been impacted.
It was not until almost 1pm when services started returning that Optus provided its next update that some Aussies were able to access the internet and make calls.
“And most importantly, even when we didn’t have resolution, we heard from Telstra about what it was and what they were doing. That’s the biggest failing, not the network failure, the communication failure from Optus,” Mr Long said.
In response, Optus announced on Thursday it would provide 200GB of bonus free data to affected customers. It will be available from Monday.
However, Australians with the provider have slammed the offer as not enough, especially for businessowners who lost out on revenue having to close shops.
Mr Long said he “laughed a lot” when he heard about the compensation, arguing data has “zero value in today’s economy”.
“Seven years ago in 2016 when Telstra had an outage and offered free data for a whole Sunday, that was great value,” he said.
“People took advantage, swarmed to the network but today at home unlimited data.
“An Optus customer on their mid-tier $69 plan has 200 or 500GB of data at their whim and the average Australian uses 15GB. There’s no need for more data, you don’t even get charged when you use more than your plan.”
He urged those with Australia’s second largest telco provider who are still annoyed to go elsewhere as there could be better deals on the market.
Kogan Mobile reportedly saw a 400 per cent increase in e-SIM activations, while Vodafone and Boost saw a “massive increase” in customers, according to Mr Long.
Optus apologised again on Thursday night as customers were still fuming.
“We know the importance of being connected and we’re deeply sorry that your service was interrupted,” it said on X.
“We thank you for your understanding and patience while we worked to restore our operations. We’re committed to working tirelessly to provide the value you deserve and the great network experience you expect from us.”