Singtel’s Optus appoints veteran to lead independent review of emergency calls outage
Singapore telco says it is ‘deeply sorry’ about the incident that is linked to three deaths
[SINGAPORE] The board of Australian telecommunications company Optus has appointed Dr Kerry Schott to lead an independent review of the emergency call failure incident on Sep 18.
Three people in Australia died after emergency calls were blocked due to an outage that occurred after a network upgrade. Optus said it apologised “unreservedly” for the incident and blamed a departure from “established processes”.
Singtel on Wednesday (Sep 24) said it was “deeply sorry” about the incident, where more than 630 mobile phone calls to emergency services failed to connect.
The review will identify the causes of the issue, and determine the applicable processes, protocols and operations of the incident, said Optus in a bourse filing on Wednesday. It is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
It will also examine the operational management of triple-zero calls – the Australian emergency number – on the Optus network, including the monitoring and operational effectiveness in relation to the incident. Optus’ adherence to policies, procedures and legislative requirements will be under consideration as well.
Optus chairman John Arthur said: “Dr Schott’s extensive cross-industry experience at both the executive and board level, and in both the public and private sectors, particularly in infrastructure, energy and telecommunications, ideally equips her to undertake this review.”
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Previously, Dr Schott led a short review into incident management at Sydney Trains for the New South Wales Government Cabinet Office. She has also been a chair for a few rail-related panels and reviews.
“We are working with the Optus board and management to ensure a thorough investigation of this incident,” said Singtel group chief executive officer Yuen Kuan Moon on Wednesday. “We will continue to... support the Optus board and management team as they work through this incident and accelerate the changes needed.”
Yuen will arrive in Australia on Sep 29 for an Optus board meeting, said the Australian Financial Review.
In its annual reports, Singtel said Optus had cut the money spent on mobile networks by A$237 million (S$201 million) from 2024 to 2025, falling to A$613 million from A$850 million. This was despite an Australia-wide outage at Optus in November 2023 that hit millions of customers, with emergency calls also affected then.
Dr Schott is currently a director at Australian energy generator AGL, chair of the Carbon Market Institute and chair of the Competition Review Panel for the Australian government. She was previously a managing director at Deutsche Bank and executive vice-president at Bankers Trust Australia.
She was also CEO of Sydney Water from 2005 to 2011, and has served on a number of advisory committees and policy reviews.
Optus accounts for about half of Singtel’s annual revenue. The Singapore company said that it has invested over A$9.3 billion into its Australian subsidiary across the past five years, with a large proportion of that put to building network infrastructure across Australia.
Shares of Singtel closed 0.2 per cent or S$0.01 lower at S$4.26 on Wednesday.
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