UPDATE: Singtel’s CEO, Yuen Kuan Moon, has officially backed Optus chief Stephen Rue as confidence in the telco’s emergency response deteriorates. The urgent support comes after two major outages affecting emergency call availability in just two weeks, raising alarm among Australian authorities and citizens.
In a crisis meeting held in Sydney on October 3, Moon convened with federal Communications Minister Anika Wells to address the ongoing issues. The discussions centered on the technical failures behind the outages and strategies to restore public trust in Australia’s second-largest telecommunications provider.
After the meeting, Moon was questioned about his confidence in Rue, who took the helm in November 2024 following a previous outage that led to the resignation of his predecessor. Initially deferring to Optus chair John Arthur, Moon eventually expressed cautious support for Rue, stating, “It’s a people issue and it takes time to change and transform the people. He is here to provide the solution.”
Arthur further reinforced this sentiment, emphasizing that Rue’s efforts to shift the company culture are ongoing. “It was a process-related issue; people made mistakes. It’s not a question of investment,” he clarified. The Optus leadership insists they are committed to overcoming these challenges.
The recent outages have caused significant concern among Australians, particularly regarding the functionality of the triple-zero emergency call system. The first incident on September 18 resulted in outages across South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory, with reports linking it to three fatalities. The second outage occurred on October 1 in Dapto, south of Sydney, leaving 4,500 customers unable to make emergency calls for eight hours.
Experts have criticized Optus for its failure to implement a key failsafe known as the “camp-on mechanism,” which is designed to reroute calls to other networks if a call fails to connect. Minister Wells stated, “Australians need to have confidence in their telcos, particularly at their time of greatest need,” urging Optus to adopt external oversight to reassure the public.
“That’s why I’ve asked Optus to find a way to have an external account in their systems, so that Australians can have confidence in external investigation and advice,” Wells told reporters.
In response to the fallout, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network has called for Minister Wells to leverage licensing powers to enforce independent technical oversight of Optus’s emergency systems. “This would provide some assurance that there is strict oversight preventing further failures,” said network CEO Carol Bennett.
Griffith University expert Graeme Hughes echoed this sentiment, calling for a “mandatory systemic overhaul” backed by Singtel, to be supervised by independent reviewers. “The localised September 28 Dapto outage confirmed the repeated failure of the fundamental ‘camp-on’ failsafe, endangering public safety,” he argued.
As the situation develops, the focus remains on how Optus will address these critical failures and restore public faith in its emergency services. The company has launched its own investigation into the September 18 outage, which has already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators.
The community’s trust in the emergency call system hangs in the balance, as Optus faces mounting pressure to ensure that such failures do not happen again. Stakeholders are keenly watching for updates on the planned improvements and the company’s ongoing response to this troubling crisis.
