Singtel’s Optus appoints consulting firm Kearney to ‘begin immediate oversight’ following outages
The company pledges to cooperate fully and transparently with the Australian media authority’s probe into the issue
[SINGAPORE] Optus reaffirms its commitment to restoring public confidence and acknowledges its responsibility within the national emergency call system, its chairman John Arthur said in a statement on Tuesday (Sep 30).
In a direct bid to repair its reputation and regain the trust of Australians, the telco has appointed global consulting firm Kearney to provide independent oversight of its mobile network following the nationwide outage on Sep 18 that critically affected Triple Zero emergency services.
“They will begin immediate oversight, quality assurance and verification as Optus uplifts its mobile network management, processes and services consistent with required standards,” Arthur said in a statement filed with the Singapore Exchange.
Kearney will report regularly to the Optus chief executive officer and board, he added.
The announcement came after a meeting among Communications Minister Anika Wells, Singtel Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon, Optus CEO Stephen Rue, and Arthur.
The statement referred to Kearney as the “best external expertise”, and said that the board, which includes Yuen, expressed confidence that Rue and the management team would “undertake the critical reforms to continue to transform the business, and strengthen the Optus mobile network, restoring the confidence and trust of the Australian public”.
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The company pledged to cooperate fully and transparently with the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s investigation into the outage issue.
Arthur said: “The board’s highest priority is ensuring that Australians can rely on Triple Zero when it matters most, and we would once again like to apologise to all those impacted by the Sep 18 outage.”
That incident was the result of a botched firewall upgrade, triggering an outage lasting 13 hours, during which emergency calls in two states and the Northern Territory were disrupted. Four deaths were linked to it.
Just 10 days later, on Sep 28, Optus was hit by another outage that affected some 4,500 customers and disrupted calls made between 3 am and 12.20 pm – including emergency calls.
That second outage was “totally unrelated to (the previous) Triple Zero incident” and was a “different type of outage, which was limited to one cell site out of 3,140 in New South Wales”, said Singtel in a statement on Sep 29.
In a separate statement on Tuesday, Optus said that it was working with its technical partner Ericsson, a provider of radio technology supporting Optus’ mobile towers, to understand the root cause of the issue on the single mobile tower.
Ericsson’s equipment “did not appear to operate as it should”, the statement said.
It added that although the tower appeared active on the network, calls attaching to it were affected and did not transfer to other networks.
Initial assessments by Optus and Ericsson indicated that their 5G services were operational, but their 4G services, which carry their voice services in Australia, were not.
“Optus’ ability to detect the outage was impacted as the Ericsson equipment in the cell tower did not (trigger the) alarm that 4G services were not operational,” the statement said.
Optus has requested that Ericsson undertake a full health review of its elements in the Optus network.
The second outage in September only deepened the reputational crisis for Optus, which accounts for half of parent Singtel’s revenue. That disruption to services was the latest in a series of significant setbacks, including a 2022 cyberattack that compromised data on millions of customers, a similar outage in 2023 that hit millions of customers and led to an A$12 million (S$10.2 million) fine, and a A$100 million penalty this year for sales misconduct.
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