US EditionAustralia's Optus September Outage Review Flags Urgent Protocol Gaps
The review found 21 failures causing 75% of emergency calls to fail during the outage and urged urgent implementation of reforms to address accountability and risk management.
- At its Dec 16 meeting, the Optus board accepted all 21 recommendations from an independent review that found gaps in process, accountability, escalation and information protocols.
- A routine upgrade at the Regency Park exchange deviated from procedures as Optus engineers sent incorrect instructions and Nokia used an outdated 2022 procedure omitting traffic diversion; the task was misclassified as 'no impact' and 'urgent'.
- The outage lasted almost 14 hours during which 75 per cent of 605 triple zero attempts failed, and Optus' call centre failed to escalate warnings from five callers reporting failures.
- Optus chairman John Arthur said the board will pursue individual accountabilities from financial penalties to terminations, while the Schott review found widespread failures amid ongoing ACMA and Senate inquiry investigations.
- The report also questioned the Triple Zero system's performance, found risk management materially deficient across three lines of defence, and added to prior penalties including a $12 million fine and $100 million order.
19 Articles
19 Articles
‘Unacceptable’: Optus Admits Process Breakdowns After 000 Outage Linked to Multiple Deaths
Optus has publicly released the report from Dr. Kerry Schott’s independent review into a Sept. 18 outage that resulted in the emergency phone number 000 being inaccessible in parts of South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The 14-hour outage, which impacted 75 percent of emergency calls, was prompted by a network firewall upgrade. At least four people died after not being able to reach emergency services for help. A Senat…
Malay Mail
AlKhaleej TodayAustralia inquiry finds multiple failures behind Optus emergency call outage that killed two
SYDNEY, Dec 18 — An inquiry into Optus’ emergency services telephone number outage in Australia, which resulted in two deaths, revealed a series of failures during a firewall upgrade that left hundreds of people unable to contact police, fire and ambulance services.Australia’s second-largest telecommunications provider, owned by Singaporean firm Singtel, published the review today, which found at least 10 mistakes during the routine network upgr…
'Lack of care': Optus review into triple-zero outage uncovers widespread issues
A review into the Optus Triple-Zero outage that was linked to two deaths in September has revealed widespread issues and an overall "lack of care" about mistakes that led to the incident.The review examined the 14-hour failure that led to 605 people unable to connect to the emergency line in South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and part of NSW on September 18.It found that Optus gave contractor, Nokia, incorrect instruction…
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