Among other much larger deals, Optus holds a $27 million contract with the Victorian government as part of the national emergency warning system. Again, we should be grateful that the outage did not occur on a code red fire day. What exactly that would have meant will hopefully be covered in the looming state inquiry.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Emily Neophytou says it was stressful not being able to phone her husband while in the Royal Women\u2019s Hospital with their newborn daughter.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Joe Armao<\/cite><\/p>\n When you consider the thousands of businesses unable to trade, work-from-home employees left offline and stranded contractors, this was a colossal failure.<\/p>\n Now weigh that level of impact against the response from the Optus chief executive, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin. She emerged late on Wednesday to say the explanation for the outage was too complicated to explain publicly.<\/p>\n In a huge understatement, Bayer Rosmarin said it was a \u201cbad day\u201d that was \u201cdisappointing\u201d for the company.<\/p>\n Contrition was effectively absent, and the company\u2019s first offer of compensation \u2013 free mobile data \u2013 was immediately dismissed by most as a token gesture. This from a company little more than year that was immolated publicly over its lethargic response to a massive hack.<\/p>\n Bayer Rosmarin might not have seen that hack coming but after experiencing it, there was little sign that she had prepared the company for a repeat crisis. Underlining this failure, in her interview with The Age<\/em> she argued outages were both predictable and would happen again.<\/p>\n The rebuild from this outage will require not only retail customers, but also governments that rely on telecommunications companies to provide life-or-death level reliability, to have confidence in the leadership of those businesses.<\/p>\n Based on her response, it is impossible to see how Bayer Rosmarin could engender that confidence with either party, and she will need to go.<\/p>\n It is remarkable that she could have been part of the leadership team at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia during its royal commission-inspiring excoriation, as well as the 2022 Optus hack, and still apparently be so unable to see the need to look at her business through her customers\u2019 eyes.<\/p>\n Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin left customers in the dark.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Michael Quelch<\/cite><\/p>\n With the Singtel board in town to witness the entire brand-shredding performance of its subsidiary, it is to be hoped that if her resignation is not offered, it will be sought.<\/p>\n So then, the regulatory response. Australia needs healthy competition, not least in telecommunications where our prices are higher compared with other developed countries, and too often consumers are left choosing between two or three unresponsive giants.<\/p>\n We were given another reminder of that this week, as NAB and Westpac posted substantial profits despite what they claimed were \u201cchallenging conditions\u201d.<\/p>\n Monolithic businesses extracting economic rents and simultaneously decrying regulation are commonplace in this country \u2013 Qantas being another example to slot alongside the banks and supermarkets.<\/p>\n The federal government\u2019s inquiry is to be welcomed and is perhaps overdue. Regulation has largely focused on whether the companies offering access to the internet are doing so responsibly rather than reliably. This outage should serve as a wake-up call on that front.<\/p>\n The federal inquiry should force the three operators to share their infrastructure in case of emergencies. The consumer watchdog has already backed the idea because it would protect emergency calls and essential services.<\/p>\n The telcos will all resist, citing high costs and technical complexity, which the federal government should not pay heed to. We have built society-level functions around airborne data. These functions need fail-safes, back-ups and emergency plans that are well understood by all players.<\/p>\n Penalties for a lack of service should be well understood and not left to a sliding scale of what a company\u2019s finance department thinks it can get away with in consultation with its public relations team.<\/p>\n Optus has yet to reveal the cause of its national network outage.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Louise Kennerley<\/cite><\/p>\n A level of automation should be built into that equation so that customers are not left to pursue what\u2019s owed to them, as they have had to do with the airlines after COVID.<\/p>\n In Victoria, which will hold its own inquiry, the state\u2019s telecommunication tenders stress reliability as a key parameter. That has clearly not held and Optus should be made accountable for that non-performance.<\/p>\n The state would do very well to assess what can be done when its other contractors suffer outages.<\/p>\n Governments have shown reluctance to cut ties with either Telstra or Optus when it comes to enterprise contracts. Those companies should have to earn that favoured position through faultless delivery.<\/p>\n If Optus were serious, it would have offered billing reprieve during a cost of living crisis.<\/p>\n Patrick Elligett sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. <\/i><\/b>Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Most Viewed in National<\/h2>\n
From our partners<\/h3>\n