Key Points
- Optus boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has faced a Senate grilling over the telco's massive network outage.
- The outage left millions without phone or internet access.
- It was blamed on a routine software upgrade gone wrong.
Optus boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has come under the microscope after the telco suffered an outage that left millions without phone or internet services.
During the 12-hour network event on 8 November, Australian individuals and businesses were .
These are the key takeaways from Friday's Senate inquiry.
Hundreds could not make triple-zero calls
Hundreds of Australians were unable to make emergency calls during the Optus outage and the telco still doesn't know why.
Optus boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin revealed 228 calls to triple zero failed to go through during the 12-hour outage.
"We absolutely believe the triple zero system should have worked and it's critical for all Australians that the system can be relied upon," she told a Senate inquiry on Friday.
"(But) we don't manage the triple zero system, it's a very complex system that involves all the carriers, it involves the device manufacturers."
Liberal senators Ross Cadell, Hollie Hughes, and Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young are among the members involved in the Senate inquiry into the Optus network outage. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas
"It's too early to tell where the issue actually occurred," she said.
"The triple zero system is supposed to be able to pick up the traffic when we have an outage like this."
Hanson-Young accused Optus of attempting to "share the blame" when it should take responsibility, apologise and accept a penalty.
"It's not anybody else's fault Optus customers couldn't call triple zero, surely it's Optus' fault," she said.
No emergency planning
The Optus chief also revealed the outage was so unusual there had been no emergency planning for an event of such scale.
"It's not something we expected to happen," she said.
Optus managing director of networks Lambo Kanagaratnam (left) and CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin appeared at the Senate inquiry. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas
$36,000 worth of compensation provided so far — but unclear how it was offered
During the outage, millions of individuals and businesses were unable to make calls, access the internet or complete transactions, and many did not find out the extent of the issue until hours later.
"You provide a service to over 10 million people and not just individuals - government agencies, emergency services, businesses - and all they got for hours, was a couple of lines that said, 'Sorry, our service is out we're working on it," Hanson-Young said.
"For a communications company, the communication is pretty lousy."
The company later apologised and customers - including businesses that lost thousands in sales - were offered 200GB of extra data, or free data on weekends if they were on prepaid plans, as a "gesture of thanks for their ongoing support and patience".
Bayer Rosmarin said Optus had since received inquiries from 8,500 customers and small businesses with roughly $430,000 of compensation under discussion.
The telco has already provided $36,000 across all claims but it is unclear if this was offered in cash or services.
Hanson-Young says the Optus response was not good enough. The telco initially blamed the outage on a routine software upgrade, but its updated submission to the inquiry reveals it was the result of its routers' default settings.
The Cisco routers automatically self-isolated to protect themselves from an unexpected overload of IP routing information.
It took longer than expected to restore because some routers needed to be physically rebooted, requiring staff to deploy to a number of sites across the country.
CEO dodges questions over resignation
Rumours of Bayer Rosmarin's resignation have swirled around Optus since the outage and though she has dismissed claims politicians and members of the public continued to call for change.
"Given you didn't know the weakness in the network, given you haven't responded to the customers well, given you haven't reflected your staff's attitude - isn't it time for new leadership?" Nationals Senator Ross Cadell asked.
Bayer Rosmarin said she would take the feedback on board as the company attempts to move forward.
She was also asked by Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson about a story in the Australian Financial Review which reported she was considering stepping down.
Bayer Rosmarin replied that her focus was on "restoring the outage issue".
She gave another indirect response after the question was again put to her. When Henderson asked her was the report incorrect, she paused before saying: "I haven't seen any reports today, I've been preparing for being here."
The outage came just over a year after and caused the Medicare, licence and passport numbers of 10,000 customers to be stolen and leaked online.
