Optus’ token thank you for disaster outage sparks fury
Optus said it would provide 200 gigabytes of extra data to customers on contracts after Wednesday’s debacle. The token gesture equates to about 60 hours of movie streaming.
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Optus will have to confront at least three official investigations and an avalanche of damages claims from business customers that experts say are “absolutely” entitled to more than $2 of compensation after the telco’s epic network fail.
In a 5pm statement, the company said it would provide 200 gigabytes of extra data to customers on contracts while those who prepaid would have access to free data on weekends until the end of the year.
In the statement, Ms Bayer Rosmarin said the extra data was an acknowledgment of customers’ “patience and loyalty”.
Optus made no promise of any financial compensation to any customers, but in its statement did say “we understand some businesses were uniquely impacted and encourage any with concerns to contact their Optus Business Centre or Business Care on 133 343”.
On Wednesday Ms Bayer Rosmarin and Optus’ head of customer solutions Matt Williams had told The Daily Telegraph that Optus would not be financially compensating customers.
Ms Bayer Rosmarin said this was because the amount would be “less than $2” for one day without access.
Mr Williams did not acknowledge that Optus was liable for business losses.
Ms Bayer Rosmarin was not available to be interviewed by The Telegraph on Thursday, although she did speak to other media outlets.
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) CEO Andrew McKellar said Optus had 400,000 business customers, including tens of thousands of small enterprises, with many losing a full day’s trade due to the blackout. For example, he said, cafes couldn’t take payment and delivery drivers couldn’t find directions.
“Clearly this is a major issue that Optus has to respond appropriately to, particularly for those smaller customers,” Mr McKellar told ABC TV.
He was scathing of the telco’s management.
“Well, honestly it’s been a clown show from Optus in terms of their communications,” Mr McKellar said.
Business Sydney executive director Paul Nicolau said Optus needed to consider the impact on its reputation – and the potential for a customer exodus.
“Many businesses were hurt,” Mr Nicolau said.
Consumer Action Law Centre CEO Stephanie Tonkin, who is a lawyer, said telecommunications were an essential service that users expect to be “up and operating.”
“You should be compensated if it’s not,” Ms Tonkin said.
“I caught a taxi yesterday and my driver said he was missing out on business because he couldn’t accept calls.
“For a business you can see how the loss can be significant – absolutely.”
Consumers’ Federation of Australia chair Gerard Brody, who is a lawyer, said: “If you are a business and you lost a whole lot of sales you’ve got a strong case for compensation.”
Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the government would conduct a “post-incident review”. The Senate voted to run an inquiry, which will be chaired by the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young.
“Potentially billions of dollars (were) lost in the economy because people couldn‘t access banking or get on with their daily work,” Ms Hanson-Young said.
“Optus needs to front up in a public hearing, take questions and give an explanation.”
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has begun an investigation into “strong concerns about the impact of yesterday’s prolonged Optus outage on access to triple-0 services by its customers.
“The ACMA has commenced an initial assessment to investigate Optus’ compliance with rules requiring telecommunications carriers to ensure that emergency calls are successfully carried.”
In its 5pm statement, Optus said a “network event” had triggered a “cascading failure.”
In Singapore, Optus’ parent company, Singapore Telecommunications, which is ultimately owned by the Government of Singapore, revealed Optus had made a profit of $145 million in the six months to the end of September on revenue of $4.1 billion.
In a media release announcing the result, Ms Bayer Rosmarin said: “Our customer-centric approach continues to drive positive engagement.”
Huge amount disgruntled Optus customers can claim revealed
Optus could be directed to pay customers up to $100,000 in compensation for financial losses suffered as a result of the telco’s mass outage, with some people also eligible to claim for non-financial losses.
Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert said people seeking refunds or compensation from Optus must try to resolve any problems with the telco first.
“If they are unhappy with Optus’s response, or the problem isn’t resolved, they can make a complaint with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman,” she said.
“Compensation claims made by individuals are assessed on a case-by-case basis.”
Ms Gebert said claims could be considered for non-financial loss related to issues of privacy rights, an “unusual amount of physical inconvenience,” time to resolve the complaint or “interference with expectation of enjoyment or peace of mind has occurred because of the action or inaction of the telco”.
According to a fact sheet produced by the ombudsman in 2021, telcos can be directed to pay up to $100,000 in compensation for financial loss.
“We will consider a claim for financial loss caused by a telco’s breach of an obligation under a contract, law or industry code,” the fact sheet said.
“This includes out-of-pocket expenses and lost profit.”
If customers want to make a claim they should be able to show the ombudsman the loss with “supporting information”.
Premier Chris Minns has joined a growing chorus of people calling for the telco to compensate customers.
He said Optus customers deserve to be compensated for Wednesday’s mass outage which delivered a “body blow” to small business.
Mr Minns said the customers had been “let down” by the telco which they relied on, suggesting Optus would need to do “something big” to keep its customers.
“I assume Optus expects its customers to pay on time and is pretty tough on its customers when they don’t pay, the same rule should apply in reverse,” he said.
“For your average mom and dad consumers, the ones who were doing it really tough, this was a real body blow,” he said.
“They can expect, or should be able to expect, better service from Optus.”
OPTUS CEO, EXECS TO BE GRILLED
Optus executives will be forced to front up to a public inquiry to explain what went wrong and what the telco giant will do to properly compensate the ten million Australian customers impacted by the nationwide outage.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has confirmed the newly formed senate inquiry will publicly grill Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and other senior members of the company about the incident and what can be done to ensure it does not happen again.
The federal backed the Greens’ motion to openly examine the communications disaster.
“It’s clear that there was a failure within Optus, a failure that was technical, and a failure ... to communicate with their customers,” Ms Hanson-Young said.
“Australians really want to know what protections will be in place if incidents like this happen again.”
Ms Hanson-Young said the inquiry would look at the issue of compensation, the rights of customers and what role the government could play in any future outages.
“We have an effective duopoly in the telco market, what responsibility does the government have to ensure that if people can’t access service with one, then can they have access to service with another,” she said.
Ms Hanson-Young said Optus had also previously failed to properly communicate during the massive data breach in 2022, describing the treatment of customers during the outage as “frankly insulting”.
“Over and over again, Australians yesterday reached for their phone to complete a task only to be reminded that they’ve been failed again by Optus,” she said.
Ms Hanson-Young will chair the senate inquiry.
REVIEW CONFIRMED
The Federal Government will also launch a review into the Optus network outage which left millions of customers without phone or internet access on Wednesday.
Communications minister Michelle Rowland confirmed the review on Thursday.
She said she would ensure the terms of reference were “sufficiently robust”.
“I’m going to take advice on that, but I think this also needs to be done thoroughly but expeditiously and have recommendations that are capable of implementation,” she said.
“Because ultimately, this is about making these networks that we rely on so much, making sure that they are as resilient as possible.
“Connectivity is absolutely essential for consumers and business and the impacts of this outage were particularly concerning,” the minister said in a statement.
“While we welcome that Optus services are now restored, it is critical the government conducts a process to identify lessons to be learned.
“I will task my department with developing the terms of reference for a post incident review, further announcements around the terms of reference and next steps will be made in due course.”
Meanwhile, Optus executives have declared the telco will not refund customers for one of the worst telecommunications outages in Australian history because most would get “less than $2” and instead it will “reward” the patience and loyalty of those who do not leave the company.
Up to 10 million Australians were left without phone or internet access for most of Wednesday after the complete collapse of services meant to be provided by Australia’s number-two telco.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has independently commenced an assessment to investigate Optus’ compliance with rules requiring that emergency calls are successfully carried from mobile carriers to the Emergency Call Person (Telstra).
The outage caused widespread chaos. Hospitals and emergency services couldn’t communicate, trains in some parts of the country were brought to a standstill and businesses that relied on Optus for taking electronic payments were left in the lurch.
The Singaporean-owned company was reduced to telling customers unable to ring triple-0 that they should find a neighbour with a mobile connected to another network.
But, the debacle, it seems, was not big enough to earn customers a refund, according to Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and managing director of customer solutions Matt Williams.
Ms Rosmarin told The Daily Telegraph “refunding people for one day is probably less than $2.”
When it was pointed out that businesses paid a much higher rate than that to use the company’s services, Mr Williams said the same principle still applied — they would only be eligible for being unable to use their services for a day.
It was put to Mr Williams that some businesses were unable to make sales because of the outage, but he did not change his position, insisting: “We are not talking about compensation.”
Ms Bayer Rosmarin said: “We are going to look at how we reward our customers for their loyalty and patience”, adding that “we might choose to do something that is more valuable” than direct compensation for individuals and businesses, although she repeatedly declined to be specific.
Experts said the outage had dealt the telco’s reputation another massive blow following last year’s data breach fiasco.
Even before Wednesday’s drama, Optus was the nation’s most distrusted brand, according to researchers Roy Morgan.
Politicians called for an inquiry into the debacle and consumer advocates urged the business to compensate customers, many of whom were looking to join rival carriers.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission would not comment but its former boss Allan Fels said customers deserved to be compensated to some degree.
Professor Fels said the communication by Optus had been “very poor”, noting it was the company’s “second major failing … in a short period of time”.
“The recent data breach means Optus took a very big hit in its public reputation, and this will damage it much further,” he said.
“If there is legal liability they should pay, and in any case, customers who are immediately damaged need compensation.”
HOW COMPENSATION CLAIMS COULD PLAY OUT
The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network’s CEO Andrew Williams said “we look forward to hearing how Optus will compensate customers for the significant disruption resulting from this outage.
“Optus customers have the right to claim compensation under their contract and the Australian Consumer Law,” Mr Williams said.
He urged people to make diary records and keep receipts for any purchases they had been forced to make.
It is understood one option being considered by Optus is extra data for customers.
Flinders University adjunct senior lecturer and telecommunications fellow Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen said the contracts people signed with Optus would set out the company’s liabilities, which for individuals often only includes reimbursement for the time there was an outage.
“The balance of legal power between consumer and telecommunication provider is heavily in favour of the providers,” he said.
#Optus are currently unable to provide Australians with an update as their phones & internet are currently down. Instead they have resorted to more traditional means of communications. pic.twitter.com/ZzCy8YhpUI
— Glenn Colgan (@GlennColgan) November 7, 2023
“Optus will have some costs but it is not going to reflect the costs that society has incurred, the stresses and other impacts that have come about.”
Ms Bayer Rosmarin said the company was “very apologetic”, adding: “Unfortunately today we let our customers down but every other day we deliver.”
The outage began before 4am but nearly 14 hours later, Ms Bayer Rosmarin could not explain what had gone wrong beyond saying it was a “technical network fault.”
She also could not say how many customers had been affected.
The fix had required “a lot of technical work in the core and in the software.”
The core is the system meant to allow devices to connect to phone and internet services. Services were restored in stages on Wednesday afternoon.
One of the most disturbing failures was in connections to emergency services, with customers unable to use landlines to call triple-0 and some mobiles could not call triple-0 either.
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