A damning report into an outage at Optus — which cut off access to triple-0 services and was linked to four deaths — has exposed a raft of internal problems at the foreign-owned telco, including an internal culture that is a drag on crisis response times.
Optus on Thursday released the findings of an independent review, led by former NBN director Kerry Schott, which found there were “gaps in process, accountability, and escalation and information protocols that need urgent attention”.
“It also highlighted challenges in Optus’ culture that have impacted decision-making and response times,” the report concluded.
The system meltdown was sparked by a scheduled firewall upgrade in South Australia at 12.30am on September 18.
Normal calls were mostly unaffected but the outage blocked about 600 triple-0 calls from connecting to emergency services.
The breakdown hit South Australia, WA, the Northern Territory and NSW.
Of the 631 customers who initially failed to connect, 86 eventually reached triple-0 through the Optus network, and 65 reached emergency services by switching to another carrier, such as Telstra or TPG.
The board of Optus, which is owned by Singapore’s Singtel, said it has accepted all 21 of Dr Schott’s recommendations.
“The 21 recommendations build on the multi-year strategic transformation underway at Optus and the changes introduced to address shortcomings identified by the company during the initial response to the incident,” the telco said.
“Optus has established a dedicated work program to implement Dr Schott’s recommendations, complemented by comprehensive cultural reforms underway to further strengthen accountability, transparency, risk responsibility and a customer first mindset at all levels of the organisation.”
More to come.
