Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin faced a grilling from senators about the telco’s handling of last week’s 14-hour nationwide outage, which she said was caused by Cisco routers.
“[The root cause of the issue] was that Cisco routers hit a fail-safe mechanism, which meant that each one of them independently shut down. That was triggered by the upgrade on the Singtel international peering network,” Ms. Rosmarin said.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young pointed out that Optus initially blamed Singtel’s software upgrade for causing the outage, which stopped millions of Australians, 40,000 businesses, and emergency services from calling or taking card payments on Nov. 8.
Ms. Rosmarin clarified there was no dispute with Singtel.
“We put out a statement that got interpreted [by the media] that the software upgrade was the cause of the outage,” Ms. Rosmarin said.
Singtel confirmed in a statement that its routine upgrade was not responsible.
“We are aware that Optus experienced a network outage after the upgrade when a significant increase in addresses being propagated through their network triggered preset failsafe. However, the upgrade was not the root cause,” the statement said.
“[Singtel] had planned the upgrade on one of its routers at 1 a.m. SGT on Nov. 8 and gave prior notice to all affected customers, including Optus and other telecoms.”
Optus Battered for Lack of Public Communication
Meanwhile, Ms. Hanson-Young said Optus’ public relations strategy about the outage cause was “pretty lousy” for “a communications company.”The telco provided updates several hours after the incident, contributing to the negative feedback.
Meanwhile, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland was left to inform the public about the network issue.
“This is very frustrating at the moment, and there is a strong desire to have some timeframes about when this might be rectified,” she said.
At the same time, Shadow Communications Minister David Coleman called on the government to step in and demand answers from the embattled telco.
“It’s understandable that people would be quite angry, and Optus does need to very clearly come out and say, ‘This is what happened, and this is why this won’t happen again,’” he told Sky News Australia.
South Australian Senator Karen Grogan asked Ms. Rosmarin if she considered communicating with customers earlier in the crisis.
Meanwhile, Senator for New South Wales Hollie Huges pointed out that Optus had already released a social media post.
“Didn’t that seem a little ironic to you that you’re letting people know there’s an outage on social media when they didn’t have access to it,” she asked Ms. Rosmarin.
“Our teams did the best they could with the channels available to them,” Ms. Rosmarin said in response.
She added that her reason for the lack of communication was focusing on prioritising the team’s “actual crisis response.”
She said she also wanted to wait until she had all the information at hand.
“Given how little information we had about the cause and potential restoration time, we could at least rule out the possibility of malicious activity to reassure our customers and the nation,” she said.
Rosmarin Admits Company Could Have Done Better
She moved to acknowledge that Optus’s communication handling had room for improvement.“Could we have done something better? Of course, we could have, but I am also so grateful for the way so many of our people mobilised under intense pressure and unique circumstances,” she said.
She referred to Optus staff travelling across the country to reboot services physically.
“I am deeply sorry. I want to make it clear that we have taken immediate and ongoing steps to rectify any shortcomings,” she added.
Optus compensated customers with 200GB of extra data, accessible from Nov. 13 until the next few months.
Ms Rosmarin said the free data package was a “gesture of thanks for the ongoing support and patience.”
People walk past an Optus store in Sydney, Australia, on Oct. 5, 2022. Brendon Thorne/Getty Images
Rosmarin Avoids Questions About Resignation
Despite her efforts to fix the blunder, Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson suggested Ms. Rosemarin would resign as Optus boss, citing a report in The Australian Financial Review.“Ms. Bayer Rosemarin, this morning, there was a media report that you intend to resign as CEO. Is it your intention to resign? Ms. Henderson asked.
She said she was unaware of the reports and had no time to “think about” herself, and that she remained focused on her team, the customers, and the community.
“Could you address that question? Are you intending to resign?” Ms. Henderson pressed.
“I thought I answered the question ... My focus is not on myself,” was her response.
