The small business ombudsman has panned Optus for giving its customers “inadequate” compensation after a 14-hour nationwide outage on Nov. 8.
The disruption affected over 10 million Australians and prevented emergency services and businesses from calling or taking card payments.
Optus said the 200-gigabyte free data package was a thank you to customers for their “patience” and “loyalty” following the nationwide blackout.
However, Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson said the telco giant’s extra data offer was insufficient.
“More needs to be done to acknowledge this impact on the livelihoods of our small and family businesses with a more tailored response,” Mr. Billson said.
He said Optus “poorly served” small businesses who rely on telecommunications as an essential service.
“And some have suffered a significant economic cost,” he said.
He rejected Optus’s suggestion that the loss for a small business was only $2 a day.
“This is what Optus charges for their services, not what the consequences and loss of that service have cost small businesses in lost income and customers,” he said.
“Australia’s 2.5 million small businesses provide jobs for 5.1 million people and employ 42 percent of all apprentices and trainees in training—nearly double the amount supported by a big business. They deserve respect and not to be treated in such a shabby way by Optus.”
Supplied image of people using a new contactless payment app designed by Optus on a smartphone at a retailer in Sydney, Australia, on Nov. 13, 2014. AAP Image/Fuel Communications, Optus
Criticism Leads to Multiple Investigations
Politicians and experts also criticised Optus over the outage, with the federal government launching an investigation.The investigation follows the Senate establishing a parliamentary inquiry into how the telco giant communicated with its customers.
Further, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has begun investigating whether 000 calls on mobiles were affected during the outage.
Optus said it welcomed the investigation and intended to cooperate fully.
“We really appreciate the patience and understanding our customers have shown,” Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said.
She acknowledged customers were “let down” and emphasised the importance of keeping them connected in today’s modern world.
Customers will have access to the free data from Nov. 13 until the next few months.
‘Optus Really Does Need to Explain,’ Acting PM Says
Despite Optus acknowledging the blunder, Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles told the Today Show that the telco giant still owed Australians an explanation.With safety paramount, he said the government worked “very hard” to ensure 000 services were accessible during the outage.
“But landline customers for Optus, for example, were not able to access that,” he said.
“It’s why Optus really does need to explain what has happened here, and it’s obviously why we’ve undertaken a review, so that we can learn the lessons of this, not just for Opus, but in fact for all telecommunications,” he said.
However, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said Mr. Marles’ comments were “pretty cold comfort.”
Particularly for “small businesses, cafes and others who couldn’t transact without that tap and go service which relies on wireless or their broadband connection.”
He said the outage affecting millions of businesses demonstrated the “phenomenal” need for reliable telecommunication.
Therefore, he said the government needed to “work harder” to ensure reliability.
“They have a reliability question in their minds now about the service being provided by Optus. And I think they’ve got a lot of repair work to do.”
Network Issue a ’Cascading Failure'
Meanwhile, Optus acknowledged the extent of the repair work for the “network issue.”Optus followed with more information about the network in a statement: “In common with major global telecommunication networks, the Optus network is designed with multiple layers of fallback and redundancy. At the heart of this is a modern intelligent router network.”
Despite this, it acknowledged the outage triggered a “cascading failure.”
An Optus public service message is displayed inside an Optus store in Sydney, Australia, on Oct. 5, 2022. Brendon Thorne/Getty Images
Experts have concluded that failure meant the telco giant needed more backup systems.
Telecommunications expert Paul Budde said Optus should have multiple unconnected systems so one could back up the other in the event of a failure, reported SBS news.
“It’s (backup systems) not working with Optus, so in that case, it looks like we need to look into that ... perhaps the government regulators will have to decide if that network is up to scratch for modern times,” Mr. Budde told SBS.
However, Government Services Minister Bill Shorten indicated Optus was not up to speed.
“They’re in a world of pain ... but for me, the real losers here are the 10 million customers,” Mr Shorten told 2GB radio.
