Optus’ parent company looks set to send its Australian-based directors to a parliamentary hearing examining a major Triple Zero outage that occurred in September, an incident that has been linked to two deaths and that triggered national concern about the reliability of emergency calls. The current inquiry has been running through a series of public hearings, with regulators, telecom operators and device makers facing questions about whether shifting technology and cost-saving strategies have weakened the backbone of Australia’s emergency network.
At the centre of the process is Optus’ emergency call failure and the role of its parent company. It has poured more than $9 billion into the business over the past five years but is now under scrutiny for allegedly underinvesting in core areas such as staffing, information technology and network resilience. The local Optus chair has already fronted the inquiry twice and is due to appear again alongside another Australian-based director after earlier attempts to have them attend were declined. Telecom regulators including the national communications authority are also scheduled to give evidence as the committee examines how industry practices, offshoring decisions and technology transitions contributed to the outage.
The inquiry is happening alongside a separate government review that aims to overhaul the laws and regulations governing Triple Zero, with the communications portfolio signalling that a full legislative review is a key part of rebuilding public trust in the system. Major players such as Telstra, TPG Telecom and device manufacturers have already been drawn into hearings over broader issues like 4G migration, 3G shutdowns and software misconfigurations that forced tens of thousands of older handsets to be replaced or updated so they could make emergency calls reliably. However, the main spotlight remains firmly on Optus after an independent review it commissioned found that outsourcing mobile networks and call centres offshore contributed to delays in spotting the outage, with at least 10 separate errors by Optus and a key network contractor blocking hundreds of calls to emergency services. That review issued 21 recommendations, including a reassessment of the skills and depth of the company’s Australian board. Optus has accepted all of them, while the Senate committee’s own report, due by the end of March, looks likely to shape future rules, investment decisions and expectations around accountability when critical national services fail.
