Optus is facing a major customer backlash after a catastrophic triple zero outage left emergency calls unanswered and was linked to three deaths.
A Resolve Political Monitor poll for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed that 27% of Optus’ 10.7 million customers have considered switching networks following the outage, while 47% rated the telco’s handling of the incident as “poor or very poor.”
The 13-hour failure on September 18 saw more than 600 emergency calls fail to connect due to a botched network upgrade. Optus CEO Stephen Rue later confirmed the outage was caused by human error.
Communications Minister Anika Wells vowed to hold the company accountable and hinted at a broader review of Australia’s telecommunications and emergency service networks. “Australians must be able to rely on our triple zero system,” she said. “Telcos must do better to restore public confidence after this catastrophic failure.”
Optus, headquartered in Singapore and Australia’s second-largest telco, has launched an internal investigation, while the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is conducting its own probe into the incident.
The outage has severely damaged public trust, marking yet another crisis for the embattled telecom giant just a year after a major data breach rocked millions of customers nationwide.
