Australia’s second-largest telecommunications company, Optus, has admitted to a parliamentary inquiry that it had no contingency plan in place for a total network outage that left millions of customers without phone or internet access for nearly 15 hours in October.
The outage, which was caused by a software error, was the largest in Australian history.
Optus’s executives told the inquiry that the company had been aware of the risk of a total outage, but that it had not considered it to be a high probability event.
They also said that the company had not conducted any simulations of a total outage, and that it had not developed any specific procedures for dealing with such an event.
The admission has been met with criticism from consumer groups and politicians, who have accused Optus of being unprepared for a major incident. The Australian Communications and Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) said that Optus’s lack of a contingency plan was “unacceptable” and that it “demonstrates a clear lack of care for their customers.”
Optus has apologized for the outage and has promised to review its emergency procedures. The company has also said that it will invest in new technology to prevent similar outages from happening in the future.
The outage has raised concerns about the resilience of Australia’s telecommunications infrastructure. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is currently conducting an inquiry into the outage, and is expected to make recommendations to improve the resilience of the network.
Here are some of the key takeaways from Optus’s admission:
- Optus was aware of the risk of a total outage, but did not consider it to be a high probability event.
- Optus did not conduct any simulations of a total outage.
- Optus did not develop any specific procedures for dealing with a total outage.
- Optus has apologized for the outage and has promised to review its emergency procedures.
- Optus has said that it will invest in new technology to prevent similar outages from happening in the future.
- The outage has raised concerns about the resilience of Australia’s telecommunications infrastructure.
- The ACCC is currently conducting an inquiry into the outage, and is expected to make recommendations to improve the resilience of the network.