Committee Condemns Optus for Major Outage

According to a Senate report, Optus should have provided better compensation to customers affected by a major network outage last year.

The report, released on Sep. 27, criticized the telecommunications company for offering 200 gigabytes of data as compensation for the 12-hour outage on Nov. 8, calling it “disingenuous” since few customers would likely use the additional data.

Optus had considered offering a rebate for a day of lost service but decided against it as it would only amount to $1 (US$0.69) or $2 (US$1.38).

The Senate committee, led by Sarah-Hanson Young of the Greens, argued that the dollar figure may correspond to what Optus charged for its services but didn’t reflect the impact of the service loss on its customers.

Former Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin mentioned in the inquiry that 8500 customers and small businesses had contacted them regarding compensation, with discussions underway to pay $430,000 (US$296,000) in damages.

While Optus had already paid out $36,000 (US$24,800), it contended in its Senate submission that there was no precedent, either in Australia or elsewhere, for telecommunications companies or electricity providers to compensate for service disruptions.

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Optus stated that communications services did not guarantee continuous service, following its November outage that left 10 million individuals and businesses unable to make or receive calls or complete transactions.

The cause was traced back to a software upgrade, which also resulted in 228 triple-zero calls not getting through.

The Senate committee concluded that current telecommunication guarantees were outdated and didn’t consider the evolution of telecommunication services over the past decade.

The committee recommended that the government instruct the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to develop a specific dispute resolution mechanism to ensure compensation in case of extensive outages.

In a statement on Sep. 27, Optus reiterated its apology for the outage and mentioned implementing crucial changes to manage emergency calls during network difficulties.

Optus added that its customer team had engaged with affected customers to provide support as needed and expressed gratitude for the Senate committee’s efforts, committing to further collaboration with government and regulatory authorities.