Optus fined $12 million over 2023 outage

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Optus has been hit with a $12-million penalty after thousands of customers were unable to call triple zero during last year's unprecedented network outage.

Transcript

00:00Any Optus customer doesn't need reminding, millions of people couldn't use phone or internet

00:07for up to 14 hours.

00:10It had a massive impact across the economy.

00:14People were unable to use FPOS machines, but it really disrupted every aspect of everyday

00:20life for Optus customers.

00:22And there was a lot of concern about the way Optus communicated during the outage, not

00:28only with the public, but also with government.

00:31And there's been a lot of recrimination since then and inquiries.

00:36And we've just had the announcement about this investigation by the telecommunications

00:42regulator ACMA.

00:43Well, it found that Optus breached one of its most important obligations, that more

00:48than 2000 people who were trying to call emergency services via triple zero or other means were

00:55unable to.

00:56And so that's people trying to get an ambulance, trying to call the police.

01:01And you know, I spoke to one man who is a Gold Coast resident, who's a cancer patient

01:06who is having a medical episode.

01:08And he says he was trying to get an ambulance and couldn't for some time.

01:13And not only that, but the investigation found that after the outage was over, Optus had

01:21an obligation to do welfare checks on people who couldn't make those triple zero calls.

01:26And it found that in more than 360 cases, it failed to do so, including the Gold Coast

01:32man that I referenced.

01:33He said he never got a welfare call from Optus.

01:36And what's Optus said?

01:39Optus has said that it has admitted that it let down its customers and that it's tried

01:44to make amends for doing so.

01:46It conducted an internal review that had a look at its systems and processes, including

01:52about making emergency calls during an outage.

01:55And it also says it's working with the government to implement the recommendations of a review

02:01that was done that recommends there be increased obligations on the sector to make sure not

02:07only that their networks are far more resilient, but also that they communicate much better

02:14with both government and the public to make sure that, you know, the debacle, frankly,

02:19that we saw during the Optus outage doesn't happen in the same way again.

02:23The government is working through those recommendations from the Bean Review about exactly what should

02:30change in the telecommunications sector.

02:32But I think more broadly, there's a big discussion happening between consumer groups, the telco

02:39sector and government about whether regulation of the sector is adequate and whether consumers

02:45are properly protected.

02:47And I think that is an ongoing conversation that is going to continue, not just with outage

02:53outages, but with a range of other areas of telecommunications.

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