The communications minister indicated that her department would be responsible for developing the terms of reference for a post-incident review. This comes after the Australian government ordered a review into the Optus blackout on November 10 that caused millions of people to lose their mobile connection for several hours. Minister Michelle Rowland stated that while the restoration of Optus services was welcomed, it is crucial for the government to conduct a process to identify lessons learned. She also announced that her department will further define the terms of reference and next steps for the review at a later time.
Additionally, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will determine whether Optus met the rules regarding emergency calls during the outage. Reports indicate that around ten million consumers were unable to make phone calls or send messages, while tens of thousands of businesses faced issues with EFTPOS services, leading to significant disruptions across various essential services, including public transport, hospitals, and emergency services.
While Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin offered a “sincere” apology to consumers, she did not provide a clear explanation for the outage. The government expects Optus to compensate affected customers, and Ms. Rowland stated that it is reasonable for Australian consumers to receive compensation for the economic or other losses caused by the outage. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman urged affected businesses to keep evidence of their losses and reach out to Optus for discussions on compensation.
Cynthia Gebert from the Ombudsman office encouraged businesses to provide Optus with the details of their losses to obtain the appropriate compensation. Despite the severity of the situation, Optus declared that a refund would not be sufficient compensation for the impact of the outage and is considering alternative forms of compensation for loyal customers.