Dec 18 (Reuters) – Optus, Australia’s second-largest telecoms services provider, said on Thursday that an independent review into its September outage found gaps in process, accountability, escalation, and information protocols that need urgent attention.
The independent review also “highlighted challenges in Optus’ culture that have impacted decision-making and response times,” the firm added in its statement.
A technical failure at Optus on September 18 had disrupted emergency call services, impacting 600 people and leaving four people dead.
At the time, the telecom carrier said that a departure from standard processes during a network upgrade sparked the technical failure that prevented customers from making emergency triple zero (“000”) calls.
At its meeting on Tuesday, December 16, Optus’ board accepted all the recommendations and “agreed to move swiftly with their implementation”, the firm said in its statement on Thursday.
“The Board is taking further action in relation to individual accountabilities flowing from the incident, which will extend from financial penalties through to termination in appropriate cases,” Chairman John Arthur said.
The independent review makes 21 recommendations, Optus said, building on its multi-year transformation and changes already introduced after shortcomings were identified in its initial incident response.
(Reporting by Shivangi Lahiri in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona and Rashmi Aich)
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