The CEO of embattled foreign-owned telecommunications giant Optus has blamed Indian IT workers for a 13-hour Triple-Zero outage that left at least three people dead across Australia last week.
Chief Executive Stephen Rue confirmed on Wednesday that “human error” during a firewall update caused the outage, and that a team comprised of Optus staff and third party IT engineers based both in Chennai, India, and in Australia failed to divert calls to a separate part of the network, Nine News reported.
And at least five customers contacted Optus overseas call centres – which are based mainly in India and the Philippines – to report Triple-Zero calls not going through, but the complaints were not properly escalated, The Daily Telegraph reported.
“Preliminary investigations have determined that on the first night of the upgrade, the steps taken on past successful upgrades of a similar nature were not followed,” Mr Rue said.
“On this occasion of the upgrade of 18 September, the first step in the process was not followed.
“The team is based both here and it’s also based in Chennai.”
However, Mr Rue said he and Optus were ultimately responsible for the outage, not the third party Nokia team.
“This is not about Nokia. This is about Optus’s accountability to ensure its network operates. That’s what this is about,” he said.
Three people died after being unable to get through to the emergency number on Thursday, and the death of a fourth, an eight-week-old baby, is also possibly linked.
A woman, 68, died in the Adelaide suburb of Queenstown, and two men aged 49 and 74 died in the Perth area after the network went down between 12.30am and 1.30pm.
The CEO of Singtel Group, Optus’s Singapore-based owner, has also issued an apology for the outage, saying he was “deeply sorry”.
“Our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who have passed away and we know that Optus will get to the bottom of this matter,” he said in his first statement since the outage,” chief executive Yuen Kuan Moon said.
“We are working with the Optus board and management to ensure a thorough investigation of this incident to prevent any future recurrence.
“Optus has been cooperating fully and transparently with all relevant government agencies and regulatory bodies while the matter is being investigated and will share the findings in due course.”
Singtel has invested $9.3 billion into Optus over the past five years.
Header image: Left, Stephen Rue addresses the media on Saturday. Right, an Optus store in Sydney (supplied).
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