Following the 14-hour nationwide outage, the small business ombudsman condemned Optus for failing to provide adequate compensation. The disruption affected over 10 million Australians, including emergency services and businesses. Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson said they poorly served small businesses who rely on telecommunications. He noted that Optus’ extra data offer was insufficient and said that small businesses needed a more tailored response.
In response to the criticism, the federal government launched an investigation, and ACMA began investigating whether 000 calls on mobiles were affected during the outage. Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin acknowledged that customers were let down and emphasised the importance of keeping them connected. The telco giant welcomed the investigation and intended to cooperate fully. Customers were given free data from Nov. 13 until the coming months.
Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles stated that Optus owed Australians an explanation, particularly small businesses that couldn’t transact without proper telecommunication. Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said that the government needed to work harder to ensure reliability.
Optus acknowledged that the network issue triggered a “cascading failure” and stated that the network needed more backup systems for modern times.Telecommunications expert Paul Budde said that the backup systems should have been in place, and Government Services Minister Bill Shorten indicated that Optus was not up to speed.