In 2023, apparently Optus attempted to blame them for the default values on the hardware (IIRC the size of the routing table), which several people pointed out was blatantly absurd. Apparently Optus also didn’t follow up with a welfare check of each of the failed calls in their network. Apparently they had to physically visit each affected router across the entire network. They were fined. I’m not aware of any other penalties.
Now, in 2025, it appears that Optus didn’t follow their own processes, ignored several early customer reports about emergency calls not working, didn’t inform the communications minister, under reported the impact, didn’t inform customers and didn’t make any announcements until it was fixed.
In 2023 I couldn’t help but wonder if the staff at Optus had ever heard of testing. Today it seems obvious … to me … that they don’t.
Disclaimer: Note that whilst I’m an ICT professional, I don’t have any direct knowledge of the internals of these incidents and I’m relying on memory of reports and commentary and Wikipedia, I have also never played with Cisco routers, so YMMV. I also note that I haven’t been an Optus customer for about a decade, and my own experience with their ICT systems as a customer over fifteen years or so has been … let’s call it “suboptimal”.
From memory they use Cisco.
In 2023, apparently Optus attempted to blame them for the default values on the hardware (IIRC the size of the routing table), which several people pointed out was blatantly absurd. Apparently Optus also didn’t follow up with a welfare check of each of the failed calls in their network. Apparently they had to physically visit each affected router across the entire network. They were fined. I’m not aware of any other penalties.
Now, in 2025, it appears that Optus didn’t follow their own processes, ignored several early customer reports about emergency calls not working, didn’t inform the communications minister, under reported the impact, didn’t inform customers and didn’t make any announcements until it was fixed.
In 2023 I couldn’t help but wonder if the staff at Optus had ever heard of testing. Today it seems obvious … to me … that they don’t.
Disclaimer: Note that whilst I’m an ICT professional, I don’t have any direct knowledge of the internals of these incidents and I’m relying on memory of reports and commentary and Wikipedia, I have also never played with Cisco routers, so YMMV. I also note that I haven’t been an Optus customer for about a decade, and my own experience with their ICT systems as a customer over fifteen years or so has been … let’s call it “suboptimal”.